Wow. The first tw0-peat in…oh, a few years, the Pens did it back in the Teens. What can I say, the Lightning had a great team that survived CV-19 mucking with another season, the salary cap and off-season trades. Two of the three things Gary Bettman uses to prevent dynasties and preserve teams in crap markets. Poor Canada will have to wait yet another year, especially with their Maple Leafs choking again.
My only request is to keep the Cup away from their local asshole, Tom Brady.
I’ve always wondered about the CapMetro logo sewn into the seats on its light-rail cars. It’s supposed to be the Texas capital building but I can’t help wondering if it’s really a bending unit crossed with a Cylon. You know, Bender has a cousin with one Cylon parent and you get a hybrid bending unit! Cynder! Pronounced “cinder” He’d still behave the same way since both types of robots want to kill all the humans and they’re fueled by cheap booze.
What a great run Richard had! He started by directing TV shows: good stuff, namely The Twilight Zone‘s “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” and dreck, Gilligan’s Island. Then he did several movies but the one that got him rolling was The Omen, don’t waste your life seeing the dumb remake. For me, Donner will always be the person who made superhero movies feasible through his Superman and Superman II (get the Donner cut, not the Lester). Every attempt at making Superman films have fallen flat ever since.
In the Eighties, he helmed two other iconic flicks in the same year…1985: The Goonies and the underrated Ladyhawke. Those two were impressive enough for me to forgive Richard’s work I just couldn’t get into; the entire Lethal Weapon franchise, Scrooged and two other yawners he made with the now toxic Mel Gibson.
Thanks for everything Richard! You definitely had a hand in defining the film vocabulary of the Eighties and enhancing millions of childhoods.
Maybe Pixar is stuck in a pattern of great movie followed by mediocre movie, repeat. Currently, it would go: Coco, Incredibles 2, Toy Story 4, Onward, Soul and Luca. If I chose to go back farther, my hypothesis would have more interruptions of stinkers (aka Cars #, Finding Dory, Monsters University and the boring The Good Dinosaur). My opinions on Incredibles 2 has changed, it isn’t as re-watchable as its predecessor and Brave was better than I remembered.
The reason why Luca gets trashed is mainly for its lack of originality. Disney already made The Little Mermaid 30 years ago, we don’t need an Italian version. It’s also just empty and I didn’t feel anything. I know it wasn’t due to seeing it on a TV versus a movie screen because Soul nailed it. Remember, we loved Pixar’s past work due to their ability to pull on our emotions at key moments:
The others I loved were strong in timing, humor, plot and tech. When Pixar fails, I’ve written it before and I’ll write it again, they make something Dreamworks would be proud of. Except when it comes to the Cars dreck, they’ve made a long Wal-Mart commercial. Maybe they’re feeling pressure from all the crap Disney acquired via Fox’s animated catalog which is mostly Ice Age sequels. The Evil Mouse needs them to crank out anything to fill up Disney+ so all of America’s minivans will be mobile ADHD machines.
Another weakness was the casting. I love Maya Ruldoph’s voice work yet she’s getting overexposed alongside Chris Pratt with the same character, an overbearing mother. The difference, she’s talented and not married to a shithead from the Kennedy family. Jim Gaffigan wasn’t put to much good use either. Hell, they didn’t bother to get people of Italian heritage for the leads as they did with Spanish speakers in Coco. It’s mostly kids doing their best Chico Marx impressions.
There were a couple good elements Luca did have. Massimo’s missing arm had nothing to do with “the sea monsters,” it was at birth. The villain Ercole is just an asshole. His behavior has nothing to do with “the sea monsters” or Giulia. It bucked the trend in Hollywood to make everything together to explain the characters’ motivations. This is how they ruined James Bond via SPECTRE or a spoiler I saw about Cruella.
Lastly, the people going on about the gay crush between Luca and Alberto are overthinking the movie. There’s obviously visible jealousy from Alberto when Giulia takes over Luca’s attention. This is more often a normal reaction with kids their age. It certainly wasn’t Luca thinking, “I feel funny around Giulia unlike when I hang around with Alberto.” Nobody likes to feel left out of the fun plus there’s the expression, three’s a crowd. So Alberto is feeling hurt and ditched as Luca becomes more interested in Giulia’s passions and forgetting about the original plan, buying a Vespa to tour the world. However, everyone is entitled to their interpretation. One day I do hope Pixar makes a movie with same-sex leads and I will gladly see it. Pixar just needs to uphold it to the storytelling standards they established from 1995-2010.
These Irish comedians are painfully on the nose about ‘Merica these days. Meanwhile, I hope to get my own copy of Team America since Alamo isn’t allowed to show it anymore for fear of North Korea’s wrath. I guess we should be careful. Austin was on the list of targets Kim Jung Un had on a funny map.
Great. It’s not enough that the Californicators are moving here in great numbers now, jacking my property taxes to the point I may have to sell my house in five years thanks to their bullshit, bloated equity. Now they’ve acquired one of the regional food chains which make us more unique. On the other hand, Taco Cabana has been sliding slowly into the crapper as their menu was slimmed down in the Aughts and it boggles the mind how the one near my house wasn’t one of the 19 they closed down in 2020. It is the worst Taco Cabana I have ever been to. When I first moved to my neighborhood in 2001, you could get a loan there because the staff offered no interest. There was a brief period of improvement a decade ago but it went back to its terrible state during my last two visits during the pandemic. They couldn’t get my simple orders right if the world depended on it.
I’m not expecting anything to good since this Californicator interest owns numerous franchises tend to avoid lately: Jack in the Box has gotten gross, Denny’s is hardly a first choice; as comedian George Wallace said, bitchin’ about your meal there is like bitchin’ about your experience at a brothel. Then comes TGI Friday’s. Last time I checked, those have been disappearing one by one. These owners don’t offer much confidence in turning around our beloved competitor to Taco Bell.
Hasta la vista “The Pink Place.” It was a good run and I remember my first time eating there in 1994. Their fajita platter was delicious but I got heartburn the next day. I got off lucky, my other two friends contracted Montezuma’s Revenge.
Aliens remains a masterpiece and James Cameron’s best movie with a real budget. The Terminator is his best with limited money, making it a semi-Indie flick. After these two, I’m not really sold on the remainder because they’re more “Wow! What effects!” which is Titanic; it would’ve worked better without Arnold: True Lies; and lastly, he’s just repeating the Vietnam War metaphor…Avatar.
Many also say Aliens is better than its predecessor Alien. Here, I completely disagree. I put those two films together as a great pair as per Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. Both duos are examples of incredible originals with fantastic sequels. What earned Empire and Aliens their accolades was how they took the story elements from their predecessors and made a different kind of film without repeating the previous plot. Alien is a Horror movie in a Science Fiction setting. Aliens is an Action movie in a Science Fiction setting. The Xenomorphs’ frightening nature does bring Horror elements into Aliens but they’re more of an enemy than an enigma thanks to Ripley’s experience.
I was lucky enough to see Aliens in a movie theater when it was first released. I had quit my crappy Summer job during my birthday week and Mom was nice enough to drop me off at Eastland Mall’s triplex. A former co-worker recommended it. I remember asking him a question based upon my indirect knowledge of the Xenomorph; why would they send marines? Aren’t the creatures invincible? I had never seen Alien, I only knew gist from the grade-school playground and the MAD parody. I loved his response, “They’re not immune to bullets. It’s just that they run out of marines quickly.”
The film spawn a million Traveller campaigns through its execution. Too bad the role-playing game’s vague and weak mechanics made it a crap experience. On the upside, Cameron’s costume and gear design finally demonstrated what futuristic battle dress and slug-throwing weapons could be. Battlestar Galactica followed Aliens’ lead when it came to firepower with the starships and side arms. Despite Traveller not being the D&D-like game to recapture the movie’s essence, I’m confident GDW’s newer game 2300 AD was heavily influenced by it. The boxed set’s first edition cover alone makes my point.
Every other Alien-based movie since have been crappy to underwhelming at best. Alien3 should’ve stuck with William Gibson’s screenplay despite the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991; who was to say there won’t be a Soviet-style polity in the future, in space? Alien: Resurrection had a great premise only. Prometheus? Where to begin? Alongside Covenant, they’re both stories requiring people being incredibly stupid or nothing would happen. I know people get stir crazy after being in hibernation or cooped up in a confined starship for weeks, months and years; see all the Europeans who crossed the Atlantic and Pacific a few centuries ago. In the future they will still follow safety protocols on a new planet because nobody wants to travel several dozen light years and then be killed in the first day thanks to touching a mysterious pool of goop.
With Disney’s conquest of Twentieth Century Fox, the Greedy Mouse now owns the Xenomorph, including the rights to publish comic books after Dark Horse’s 30-year run ended. I’ve been buying their first series. It’s mediocre. More of a shock that Marvel is allowed to illustrate the gore these stories entail and how corporations put the Earth at risk to control the Xenomorph; I could see Disney trying to weaponize its creations in the near future. I know movies will soon follow. Disney is going to put what it paid for to work immediately to pay off the debt it took on to get The Simpsons and Fox’s other creations. My fist suggestion besides erasing all movies following Aliens as canon, have the saga pick up after Ripley, Newt, Bishop and Hicks return to Earth safely and adapt Dark Horse’s first and best comic series. Bishop and Ripley’s whereabouts are unknown. Newt is institutionalized until she’s in her early twenties by Weyland-Yutani. Hicks is forced to stay in the US Space Marines Corp against his will to keep him quiet too. Then one day, a whacky religious cult in the colonies finds another stash of Xenomorph eggs and they willing become hosts for face huggers. Why? They believe it brings them closer to god or whatever. Now an older Hicks and Newt are brought out of their “cells” to help prevent the Xenomorphs’ spread. Disney can work in the return of Bishop and Ripley somehow, the comic never did. However, they must keep the comic’s other distressing element which I believe would happen in real life. It’s too late, several infected cultists made it back to Earth and the Xenomorphs will get loose. Not due to the cultists being very cunning, no they’ll be on par with the January 6, 2021 moron brigade. Corporate greed and short-sightedness will continue to be the true absolute evil as Weyland-Yutani tries to control the Xenomorphs for profit.
Click on the picture if you want to see a larger, scarier, up-close view. I do admit, it’s less frightening than Homer’s. You can also notice the greater resemblance to Moe’s original source, comedian/writer Rich Hall from Fridays, SNL, Not Necessarily the News and Comedy Central’s short-lived show, Onion World. It’s like they just took Rich’s features, stretched them to get the Groening overbite, Moe’s furrowed brow and exaggerated his nose to unrealistic proportions.
I hope to find more. Hopefully Lisa and Marge aren’t disgusting as “humans.”
He was one of the architects of the continued mess America is in. Still waiting for those Arabs to welcome us as liberators while they kill our soldiers with mines and bullets. Rummy helped pump up the lie about Iraq having anything to do with the 3000 killed by the 19 mostly Saudi Arabian citizens. My biggest disappointment is how he avoided justice for the last 15 years since he also was St. Reagan’s envoy to Saddam Hussein in the Eighties with a message of “go ahead and use chemical weapons on the Iranian forces, we don’t mind.”
It’s people like Rumsfeld who continue to spread violence and irrational paranoia against mostly non-existent threats like the Dulles brothers, Goldwater and St. Reagan, that will bring America to an early end.
If there’s a Hell, Rumsfeld should be part of a human centipede with Sheldon Adelson, the Dulles Brothers, David Koch, Nixon, Reagan and George H W Bush. The Democrats I despise, have their punishment.
Rumor has it that these are back at Costco and HEB. I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club so I have little idea. Fingers crossed but it looks doubtful. Los Angeles is back to wearing masks indoors, even if you’re vaccinated; Australia is going back into a lockdown too. I’m sure we’ll find more outbreaks thanks to all the stupid Amerikans demanding their so-called freedumb.
I almost forgot about this horrible and hilarious display at the Riverwalk in San Antonio over New Year’s Day. Ugh! It just seems to be a stupid boast by the holy rollers thinking this will shame the rest of the world when we all know it backfires on so many levels. It’s a shame. I don’t think virgins should be picked on regardless of their age or affiliation yet it shouldn’t be advertised. It’s on par with telling the world you wipe after blasting a dookie. No one wants to know, please keep it to yourself and you better be washing your hands!
Both of these original mini-series via Disney+ did a pretty great job scratching my MCU itch during the Pandemic since Black Widow and other movies were pushed back until it was safe to sit in a theater. I also think the evil Mouse prefers to show its tent-pole superheroes in large venues given how poorly WW84 did through HBO Max. AT&T’s fumbling streaming service did us all a favor, the long-awaited sequel was uneven and needed more work, definitely not worth a $75 Alamo trip.
First is WandaVision. Up until the ending, the series delivered on what the trailers were enticing, making two members from the Avengers’ B-team more interesting! I loved how most episodes were a journey through American SitComs decade by decade, with all characters being reflected through the tropes:
I did love how the show was a puzzle for the audience to solve. Although I’m a bigger geek for DC, it certainly tested my Marvel knowledge on figuring out how Jessica Hahn fit into the overall plot. It’s not a spoiler, everyone knows she’s too big of a star to be delegated an insignificant role. Obviously the people overseeing the larger MCU made sure WandaVision incorporated all the events after Avengers: Endgame, maybe the last Spider-Man too. The crossover characters demonstrated this continued commitment:
The finale was a push sadly. Once again, there was a giant energy beam shooting into the sky as the heroine has an epic battle with her nemesis, blah, blah. We’ve all seen it numerous times on the big screen and it’s unimpressive on TV. WandaVision only redeems itself by hinting at Vision’s return for future movies (Thanos killed him by removing the Infinity Stone in his forehead) and when the credits conclude, there’s a prologue to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Second is the shorter The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, two more B-team Avengers yet I’ve always had a soft spot for the Falcon since I was a kid in the Seventies; he was Captain America’s partner for several years. After a couple episodes, I wasn’t sold because the show was playing out like every crappy Action movie made by Tom Cruise. There just weren’t many superhero touches happening to warrant the MCU label: punching, kicking, shooting, running and meeting contacts aren’t exclusively superheroic attributes. It can be countered…then what about Batman and Captain America? Their movies still involved fantastic elements implausible to the Action genre I’m comparing this to: the gadgets and comic-book villains (Arnim Zola digitized, the Red Skull). One day I hope they bring Batman’s more fantastic foes to movies: Clayface II, a better Poison Ivy, Mad Hatter, the Manbat and Killer Croc.
Falcon & Soldier did rescue itself later by incorporating the uncomfortable subject of American racism into the arc by asking: Why can’t a Black American be Captain America? Why are Black Americans, even superheroes, stiffed by banks? Lastly, the Super Soldier Serum was secretly used in a Tuskegee-like experiment after WWII. Surprise! It didn’t end well. The Wakandan warrior cameos at the half-way point got matters turned around since Baron Zemo is an underwhelming villain compared to his comic book source.
This series’ finale ended better than WandaVision. No giant sky beam or aliens pouring out of a portal. The heroes prevailed, another gets redemption and the seeds are sown for a new HYDRA-esque infiltration (yawn). What sealed it for me, Disney allowing matters to go forward and not reset by letting someone truly worthy continue Captain America’s legacy. Falcon & Soldier didn’t give any hints about which upcoming MCU movies they helped push forward beyond the fallout from The Blip we may see in all of the upcoming features but Black Widow.
My Flyers were atrocious in this modified season but I only know this through media accounts, namely Philly-based stuff through Apple’s News app. Given the Pandemic, I just haven’t been that into my teams involving games over weekdays. I will be next Fall with the renewal of my season tickets to my Stars!
I have to admit, the brief experiment of having all the Canadian teams lumped together into their own division was interesting. I didn’t think any of them would get to the Cup since they suffer from bad luck. Don’t get me wrong, most of these teams are pretty impressive but small-market organizations have difficulty progressing. So congratulations to the Montreal Canadiens for overcoming a 3-1 deficit and sending the Toronto Maple Leafs packing. They join my Flyers, the Devils and one other that pulled this off. Sorry Toronto. I know you haven’t won since the 1967 expansion and you’re the most valuable franchise in the league. It’s what you get when you let an asshole Tory become prime minister and makes the teachers who were invested into the biz, divest.
I am bummed to see Las Vegas get eliminated. They can blame me for buying a good jersey during my last vacation. They still have nothing to be ashamed of. The Knights remain the best new expansion team to kick ass out of the gate since, I’m going to go on a limb and say the St. Louis Blues. My vote sides with them due to their two immediate appearances in the Stanley Cup thanks to the NHL putting all of the six “new” 1967 teams into their own conference so one would face the six survivors of 1947; they’re not original.
Tampa Bay receives a round of applause from me too. Given the salary cap and Bettman’s obsession with being cheap, not competition, it’s uncommon to see a defending champ to return, or the runner up. They’re my cousin Dana’s team which gives me a reason to cheer.
However, to make it interesting again. I have a friendly wager against her Lightning to lose to the Habs. It’s not to be a jerk. I’m cool with either team since the Pens and Crapitals were eliminated. I just want to have an excuse to give Dana $20 via Amazon.
Bunono Fortuno to both.
A rather hilarious picture of something quite possible when it comes to kittens. They’re very curious, more liquid than adult cats and not very bright. Given how heavy the door is on a vending machine in order to get your goodies, it is very possible the photographer pushed the poor thing in to get this photo. I’m willing to give the kitten the benefit of the doubt since I remember a little fuzzball managing to get into my grandmother’s furnace and climb up about ten feet to appear in one of the vents in the living room. Fortunately, it was Summer so the kitten wasn’t in any danger. The funniest part was hearing the mewing, looking over at the vent and seeing them, soot on their forehead, standing there all matter-0f-factly and saying hello.
Most people refer to this as Little Bighorn but I prefer to go with the winners, a combined force of First Nations known as the Lakota, North Cheyenne and Arapaho.
It’s also known as one of America’s biggest defeats in battle in which a modern force (for 1876) got clobbered by one deemed inferior, never mind the movies, the First Americans were just as well as armed as the US Army. They weren’t stupid.
Custer being killed was a good thing for America too. He wasn’t a very good officer, soldier or leader in general. He graduated last in his class at Westpoint in 1861 but since many experienced US officers defected to the Confederacy, desperation got him from being a Second Lieutenant stationed at a dead-end post to someone in the action. He caught the attention of the equally inept Major General McClellan (aka the Virginia Creeper) to receive choice assignments. Custer did work his way up in ranks both permanent and breveted (fancy for temporary, today I think we say “acting”) through various battles, namely Gettysburg. What I know about Gettysburg, it wasn’t necessarily the US Army’s skill, it was luck via Confederate miscalculations with its artillery. Even if the US lost, Lincoln would eventually put Grant and Sherman in charge to use attrition to win the overall war.
When the Civil War ended, Custer stayed in the Army and by the time of his demise, he was a Lieutenant Colonel in command of the 7th US Cavalry, not sure why people refer to him as a General. During his final years, fought in a series of battles generally called the Plains Indians Wars because those First Nations living in what we call the Great Plains, were the last holdouts to American hegemony. Custer had become quite the glory hound and was skilled at publicizing his exploits. There was even an embedded reporter traveling with him, so the bullshit we got from Iraq wasn’t new. The man was pretty delusional too. Custer thought if he defeated these people, namely their famous leaders Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, he would easily become President of the US. I guessing he would’ve run in the 1880 or 1884 elections. His wife was also in on the hype, it’s why Custer’s defeat got mythologized for decades.
Contrary to movies like Little Big Man starring Dustin Hoffman (Richard Milligan was hilarious as Custer), the entire 7th Cavalry wasn’t killed. Custer only led five of the 12 companies directly to their doom. The two officers commanding the remaining seven survived for reasons I don’t want to write about in detail. Let’s just sum it up to combination of luck, panic and their location. Neither were courtmartialed for their decision to retreat.
I want to close with why Greasy Grass is a part of my life. During my brief time in North Dakota, its capital Bismarck had a small role in the story. A steam boat carrying gear to re-supply the 7th Cavalry encountered the survivors and was hastily converted into a moving hospital. It then hauled ass to Bismarck which was the closest city with telegraph access to tell the world what happened. So news of Custer’s defeat took about two-to-three days to get to DC.
The other anecdote is a tad funnier. In the Eighties, North Dakota had a campaign to boost tourism. I know. Why? It’s a desert with tall, dry grass and hills instead of sand. But the attempt did result in a funny billboard.
