Dumb Positivity

I’m somewhat infamous among people who know me for …

Well, probably a bunch of things. But if I weren’t infamous for all of those, I might be infamous for liking enough stuff to the point where there’s not really any room for stuff to hate.

Which apparently isn’t the standard way of things? I don’t know. I’m never great at the standard way of things.

But recently, I’ve noticed an increscent amount of space for vindication of my naive enjoyment of things that are not widely hailed masterpieces. As a kid with no memory of not knowing Vader’s true identity, I was ready for more Star Wars long before “The Phantom Menace” came out, and “Attack of the Clones” is still my favourite film in the entire saga. While I can generally agree with everyone that Chris Evans is wonderful in the role of Steve Rogers, I’ve also said that there are other actors who could capture that kind of energy, but Chris’s Johnny Storm was inimitable. And the rest of the cast worked for me too!

And of course these are just a small sampling of the opinions that were vociferously contradicted by the voice of the populace for years.

But in recent years, more people are constantly rising up to agree with this sort of positivity. I noticed it to a high degree with the Star Wars prequels, though I’m sure some would write that off as a response to sequel discomfort. But now people are even coming out in support of the early 2000s Fantastic Four films, which for years seemed to be the most execrable superhero movies of the modern era to the point that scores of unimaginative cynics claimed they proved that the property was unadaptable long before the 2015 outing?

Such turnarounds warm my heart. Maybe any dumb positive opinion just has to live long enough to become smart.

Bonus Question!

Best clone?

Stryfe!

Probably not actually. But it’s fun to say.

Silver Smoothie

Once a week, I like to get a gigantic smoothie. Vary up the old nutriment. For years, I had this one favourite spot in the Chinese sector, which might be relevant in a moment or two.

There was this other lovely smoothie place in the mall across from my house, and I used to think that it’d be extravagantly convenient if my smoothie place could have such a location.

Then the pandemic struck, and my old smoothie place, presumably at least in part because of its locale, was among the first to fall. From there, I decided this would be an opportune time to try out the offerings of that place by my house. And hey. It was even better.

Score another silver lining in the surprisingly argent cloud that is the pandemic.

Best cloud?

Nimbus!

Once Again, I'm a Guy Who Knows Where His Towel Is

A few days ago, I came home after doing a bunch of errands with stuff that required a lot of organizing. While I was washing and drying my hands, I got a call from my agent about an audition I had to deal with immediately, which distracted me somewhat. But I dealt with all of the things and went on with my day.

I woke up on the following morning to discover that the towel I’d dried my hands with was missing, and I had no explanation. I wondered if I’d misplaced it during the previous afternoon’s distracted state. Or maybe in some semiconscious state during the night? Or someone broke in at some point? None of these theories could find reasonable purchase in my mind though. And you know my mind. With its OCD and all, it’s a great place for implausible ideas to find purchase. Nothing was working here though, and I put it out of my mind. Or really, it just dissipated out of my mind like the faintest fume from a cigarette in the ash tray of a car with a cracked window on the highway. When cars had ash trays. Anyway, I really didn’t need to put much effort into letting the thought out of my mind at that point because it really seemed to be a total mental cul-de-sac.

Then today, I was drying my hands with a different towel and the towel rack caught my eye in a new way.

It’s a silver towel rack against a white wall, and somehow, the pale fabric of the lost towel and blended in between the rack’s bars and the wall to be effectively invisible.

But now the towel’s found, and all’s good.

Bonus Question!

Best towel?

Probably Ford’s. It had that spot he could lick. For one thing.

Also, wow. I did not expect to have to wade through a bunch of car stuff to find a picture of the character Ford Prefect. At this point, I thought he’d be the more relevant one with that name. And I couldn’t even find this version without adding in “2005” to the Google search.

Mutants, Slightly Less New

Finally got around to seeing “New Mutants” after it finally got released after years of delays. Finally.

And it delivered. Even other people liked it! Obviously, I was going to enjoy it.

But I think the part that brought the most warmth to my heart was seeing how they made room for a dance montage after “X-Men: Apocalypse”, which is still my favourite of the franchise, relegated that to the deleted scenes.

Cheers!

Bonus Question!

Best New Mutant!

Magik! For weirdness. Also mixing mutanthood and magic. I feel that.

New MCU Punisher! The End of White Castle?

There are rumours of a new non-white MCU Punisher, and of course people are complaining about malefic social justice agendas and stuff.

But here’s the thing. If the Punisher just stays as a white dude in his next screen appearance, those same complainers are just going to whine about the inevitable swathes of articles that decry the new Punisher franchise for being a glorified ode to fragile white masculinity or whatever.

But if Frank Castle isn’t white, the volume of those articles will be severely diminished, and all of Frank’s fans will still get a satisfying Punisher movie or whatever it is without having to cavil about that polemic aftermath. Everybody wins! Or at least no one loses?

Well, maybe someone loses. There is one group to whom my mollifying arguments do not apply. Yup! White supremacists. For whatever reason, Frank, through no fault of his or Marvel, seems to have an inordinate number of avowed bigots in his fan base, and obviously, they’re always going to want a white protagonist. But those are some feelings I care even less about.

Bonus Question!

Best castle?

Howl’s. It’s in the sky, dudes!

Sandman Dream Cast

Man! When I saw the cast list for the audio adaptation of The Sandman in mid 2020, I initially thought it was for the movie, and I got really excited. The two names that stuck in my mind most were James McAvoy and Kat Dennings for Dream and Death. Those two are fun to watch in anything, and having them in two of the best roles would be a treat.

Around the new year, I was talking with a friend about the movie, and they mentioned those two names. At first I thought they were confused, but then I learned Gaiman has a habit of appreciating people from audio adaptations of his works enough to get them into filmed versions, and McAvoy and Dennings made that leap.

Could not be more excited.

And then I found out that was not the cae, and fhe actual Morpheus is someone I can’t really claim to know, but apparently be played Byron in that Mary Shelley horror movie, which is appropriate in a different way.

Bonus Question!’

I just realized “Dennings” fits with the Endless tradition of names that start with D, and now I’m wondering if McAvoy’s first name should be “Djames”.

Sleepy Chris

A while ago, my ex-girlfriend expressed surprise at the fact I hadn’t seen “Christopher Robin”. I told her I remembered seeing it come to theatres and just not making a priority of it before it left. I placed that memory around the second half of 2019, but when we went to watch it, I was it came out in 2018 and got slightly confused until the mid point of the film when I realized the source of my error.

In the second half of 2019, there was indeed a Ewan McGregor vehicle wherein he portrayed an adult version of a famous fictional kid who revisits the fantastical aspects that defined his childhood, but that movie was not “Christopher Robin”. It was in fact “Doctor Sleep”, and those two films with their conceptional overlaps mingled in my mind, where the Winnie the Pooh one, related as it was to a franchise I always had an attachment to, easily achieved dominance.

There. Cleared up. And the movie rocked.

Bonus Question!

Worst doctor of sleep?

Doctor Destiny. Dude did some dire dream dastardliness in that diner.

Treehouse Time

I watched the new Croods sequel. Ryan Reynolds and Nic Cage as weird cavemen? Yes. More of that.

But the sequel in particular got me by featuring Leslie Mann in a fantastical treehouse, which was how I was first introduced to her in the Brendan Fraser classic “George in the Jungle”. Probably also how I was first introduced to Brendan Fraser and John Cleese. Thomas Haden Church … Maybe everyone in that movie? I was a very young child.

Anyway, “Croods 2” was a joy, and if you still need more of Leslie Mann in an epic treehouse, go back and watch “George of the Jungle” again.

Bonus Question!

Best George?

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron.

World War Pause

Remember in “Watchmen” when Ozymandias averted World War III by giving the combative nations of the planet a common threat to focus on?

Remember the end of 2019 when everyone was talking about the imminence of World War III? And then that completely stopped when the pandemic gave everyone a common threat to unite against?

I don’t think I’ve heard that conspiracy theory yet.

But that’s fine because those sorts of things are dumb. The pandemic’s a real thing, but we get through stuff.

Bonus Question!

Best pandemic?

Beatlemania.

Teen! Vision in the MCU

I’ve heard a lot of theorizing about the implications of Vision’s lack of memories and Infinity Stone in “WandaVision”. The prevalent idea seems to be a version of the rebooted, colourless, emotionless Vision from the 80s or whatever.

I’m going in a different direction. This is a show that increasingly seems to focus on the children of Wanda and Vision, who grow up to be two of the Young Avengers. Billy in particular was one of four founders in the comics. But who was their first recruit?

That’s right! A younger, sleeker version of the Vision. Doesn’t that even remind you of the baby Vision we saw in a recent episode’s opening credits?

My last theory appears to be wrong. I’m due.

Bonus Question!

Vision versus Marvin the Paranoid Android! Battle of robotic ennui!

Vision’s built for combat, but on a basis of pure ennui, Marvin’s been more consistent.

Aphra Name Change - Star Wars Retcon?

Everyone now knows and loves Doctor Aphra, one of the greatest new Star Wars characters of the modern era. Darth Vader’s erstwhile archaeologist assistant. Evil Indiana Jones lady. Overall amoral science type. She began as a supporting character in Vader’s comic several years ago. and now she might be getting her own television series.

Anyway, recently I was looking on Comixology or something for the new issue of her comic, and my search for “Aphra” was turning up nothing. That’s when I realized I’d somehow gotten her name wrong for this entire time. It was actually “Althra” or something. I had no idea how that mistake had happened.

Until I woke up.

Yes, it’s actually Aphra. Chelli Lona Aphra.

Sweet dreams.

Bonus Question!

Best evil Indiana Jones?

I mean …. This guy.

My Wild WandaVision Theory - MCU Young Avengers Soon?

So. Everyone knows Evan Peters, the Quicksilver from the Fox movies who was far less accurate to the comics than the Age of Ultron version even if I liked him more, was cast in the WandaVision series. Everyone assumes he’ll be reprising his Quicksilver role. But was he even Quicksilver to begin with?

Initially, he reminded me more of Iceman, which was great since the Iceman of the movies, while he was portrayed well, didn’t seem to be written in a way that emphasized the quirkiness of the comics version. But now, especially amidst rumours of an imminent assemblage of Young Avengers in the MCU, I’m recalling a character Evan’s Quicksilver, with his youthfulness, charm, jauntiness, and goggles, resembled even more: Tommy Shepherd, the speedster named Speed. He’s the late arrival brother of one of the Young Avengers’ founders and the reincarnated son of Wanda and the Vision.

So. Instead of doing that thing of bringing in a Fox Human Torch to play an unrelated MCU character or bringing in a Sony Spider-Man to play that same Spider-Man in a multiverse kind of cameo, maybe they’re doing a bit of a mix of both where they’re bringing in an actor who played one character who was basically another to play the MCU version of the character they basically were.

So. Evan Peters is Speed. Calling it now.

Bonus Question!

How was that Quicksilver goggle costume?

Like this.

Gorilla Love

Have you ever seen two big gorillas walk past each other on an airplane aisle? With those big broad shoulders? They brush against each other, and in that moment, their fur meshes together so perfectly. You just want to put your hand in the middle and wallow in the velvety softness.

But then maybe one gorilla skipped leg day and thus narrows as his body continues, and the other gorilla’s hind section has nothing to rub up against. Expectations are disrupted.

Sometimes that’s how relationships end.

Bonus Quetion!

Best gorilla?

Optimus Primal.

Prezzies

The 2020 election seemed to galvanize people into voting in a way I really haven’t seen before. I still remember the excitement of 2008 when everyone flocked out to vote for Obama, but many of them weren’t really excited about voting in a general way. They were excited to vote for Obama. It’s almost like that silly complaint people used to make about Harry Potter books: they weren’t getting kids to read anything that wasn’t Harry Potter. There were probably cases like that, but I really doubt there were enough to warrant that petty quibble.

Anyway.

But now people have seen what happens when they don’t vote. Trump didn’t win in 2016 because the country loved him. He voted because his opponents weren’t inspired. Now they recognize why they still have to vote even in the absence of positive inspiration. Maybe that lesson will last longer than anything a transcendent but transient cynosure like Obama could do.

Bonus Question!

Favourite president?

Bee-Lo and Stitch?

Though I was familiar enough with the franchise in general and the television show in specific, I’d never seen the original “Lilo and Stitch” movie. But it’s one of my girlfriend’s favourites, and we finally watched it together.

Here’s what I’ll say. That scene at the beginning where the alien winds up at the dog pound and gets claimed against the manager’s protestations by the protagonist? In my mind, that’s what inspired the beginning of the first Michael Bay Transformers film. Just with a car alien instead of a dog alien. Stitch and Bumblebee even have somewhat similar habits of intermittent unintelligibility.

Bonus Question!

Best bee?

Got-Thor-Dammer-Ring

When comics publishing slowed nigh to a halt a few months ago, I took the opportunity to read some really old comics runs. I’d never gone back to the 60s for any extended period of time before, but I decided on this occasion to start the Thor comics from the very beginning. It’s been a trip.

I recently reached the end of the 70s. At this point, Thor’s on a quest to discover answers about the vastly powerful alien Celestials and Odin’s involvement with them. To do this, he locates and questions Odin’s sacrificed eye, which has gained immense size and sentience. And how does the eye respond? By preceding the answers to Thor’s question with a recounting of Thor’s two previous mortal lives which he’d lost all memory of. And what two mortal lives were those? Siegmund and Siegfried, son of Siegmund. That’s right. The whole thing is an explicit and canonized retelling of Wagner’s Ring cycle within the Marvel universe. They even credit Wagner on the title page of each issue. And this goes on for 10 issues. And I just try to imagine reading the Thor comics as they came out in 1980 and being taken on this operatic adaptation for most of a year.

Then he finally gets a relatively concise answer about the Celestial stuff after all of that and goes to fight those things.

Anyway, it was a time.

Bonus Question!

Best Wagner?

Kurt.

Anudder Woman

I still remember that whole plot in “Batman Forever”, one of my favourites, where the awkward, poorly socialized Edward Nygma idolizes his rich, glamorous superior, Bruce Wayne, and obsesses over him to the point of emulation. I remember seeing it again in “Iron Man 3” with the exact same hair. Before and after. And again in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”. Different hair and blue skin, Worse teeth.

But now that classic “Notice Me, Senpai” school of villainy is back at DC with Kristen Wiig’s Barbara Minerva in the new Wonder Woman movie, and all is right with the world. Well, many things aren’t. But this is.

It’s a good movie. That’s what I’m saying.

Velvet Rewind

So. This new David Bowie movie’s out. “Stardust”. It’s a movie about David Bowie that’s not allowed to use any of David Bowie’s music because no one in David Bowie’s family wanted it to happen.

But like . . . This exact thing already happened.

In the 90s, Todd Haynes, who went on to more mainstream biographical success with the multifarious Bob Dylan film “I’m Not There”, was set to direct a movie about Bowie called “Velvet Goldmine” until Bowie realized he didn’t like the specific biography that served as primary reference material for the film. Instead, Haynes turned the whole thing into a fantastical view of the glitter rock era’s general feel with weird touches like the idea that it began because of a magic gem Oscar Wilde’s extraterrestrial parents gave him. Also, Ewan McGregor was a composite of Iggy Pop and some other dudes, and he looked like Kurt Cobain. And he wasn’t famous yet. And neither was Christian Bale. Or Jonathatn Rhys-Meyers. Toni Collette. Eddie Izzard might have been the biggest star in it at the time.

Anyway, I love that movie.

Bonus Question!

Best Stardust movie?

Of Mice and Mechanical Failure

My computer broke at the end of July, and at the end of an arduous process, which included two onsite technicians and sending it to the factory, it finally seems to be working again. This is the second time it’s been repaired right before the launch of a Warcraft expansion. I was planning to buy a new computer soon before all of this, but now I want to push that back at least to avoid dealing with computer manufacturers again.

Anyway, in the interim, I was playing Warcraft on my basic work desktop after playing it almost exclusively on laptops for at least 12 of the 13 years I’ve been playing the game. Touch pad instead of mouse through all of that. It worked for me. I liked having both of my hands on one surface. But since I’ve been playing on the desktop for months, I’ve become accustomed to that, and when I got the laptop back, I quickly realized it was time to buy a mouse for it.

And I did.

Bonus Question!

Best mouse?

Mighty springs to mind.

Surgery

I had to go in for surgery, and they told me not to eat after midnight. Easy enough. But then I went to sleep and dreamed that I’d accidentally eaten a small number of grapes with a bit of broccoli. While I do eat broccoli in real life, I haven’t had a grape in six years, and I never accidentally eat. I’m not the type to just automatically reach for food from idleness or whatever. But that happened in my dream, and I started worrying that they’d have to push back the surgery by another month or something because of the four grapes.

And then I woke up. I think. In any case, I realized that it wasn’t the sort of thing that I’d do in real life and thought the whole dream was ridiculous. Then I started accidentally eating a few grapes again, failing to understand how I could make that mistake after just thinking I was foolish for doing so in a dream. Until I realized I was dreaming again. And then I just wanted to get off the track of that particular anxiety dream.

Which I did.

Bonus Question!

Best grape?

Green. And hard.