The Happiest Place on Earth

I once read that there are three kinds of Disney fans.  There’s the classic Disney fan. There’s the “other properties” Disney fan, meaning Marvel, Star Wars, and the like.  And there’s the Parks Disney fan. Of the three, if I had to choose one, I would probably say I’m a Parks Disney fan, but the truth is, I’ve never really liked that break down.  There are things to love and dislike about all three of those and it seems hugely unfair to lump everything that isn’t the classic Disney brand into the “other” category. Star Wars and Marvel are huge entities that I wouldn’t really consider part of “Disney” even though they’re owned by them now.  And sure there’s a lot of people who are fans of them that wouldn’t call themselves Disney people, but there are a lot of fans who do. Likewise, I would argue that in order to be a fan of the Disney parks, you have to at least at one point in your life have been a fan of the classic Disney films, particularly the animated ones.  There’s just so much overlap.

This was a long winded way of saying, I love all things Disney.  I love the classic live action movies, I love the animated, I love the Pirates movies (yes ALL of them, FIGHT me), and I absolutely love Star Wars and Marvel.  You don’t get a Captain America shield tattooed on your body if you don’t love it. But, if you asked me what “Disney” thing I liked the best…it would have to be the parks.  That is why, when Disney+ finally launched, one of the things I was most excited about was The Imagineering Story.

He’s a Tramp, but they love him…

So how about those Disney live action remakes, huh?

I’ve had a bit of a mixed reaction to the remakes myself.  I really enjoyed Cinderella, though I’ve come to understand that I’m in the minority there.  I thought it was very visually pretty, that the acting was sweet and believable, and that the relationship not only between Cinderella and the Prince was more enjoyable but also his relationship with his father.  There was real emotion in that film where the original doesn’t really have that. I loved the costumes as well. I could have done without Helena Bohnam Carter or the terrible CGI but other than that, I thought it was a pretty good film.

I loved Maleficent the first time I saw it but my opinion on it has waned over time.  Again, it was very visually interesting, but upon looking back at it, I really hated what was done to Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather.  Dumbo I thoroughly enjoyed but I don’t think even the most charitable viewer could say it really had anything in common with the original film.  I had mixed feelings on Jungle Book and Aladdin, feeling they did have some visually interesting moments and some fun scenes, but overall they didn’t really hold me in any real way.  They felt like what they were…nostalgic cash grabs. I didn’t even bother to see Lion King, I was so over it and uninterested.

And yet…and yet…

Lady and the Tramp was the very first thing I watched when I got my Disney+ account.  Not Mandalorian. Not any of the numerous classic Disney documentaries that I was literally salivating over.  Nope. I watched Lady and the Tramp. How did it go? Well…

So about that film adaptation…

IT is, without even pausing to think about it, my favorite Stephen King book.  To me, it encompasses everything that is great about his writing. I could probably write an entire essay on why I think IT is the best example of King’s work you’re going to find.  But that’s not what this is going to be about. I only wanted you, gentle reader, to understand that I’m coming at this story from a place of love. And no, that doesn’t mean I’m going to spend this entire review nitpicking the film because it wasn’t like the book (spoiler alert: it’s really not).  If it helps put this in perspective at all…I actually really like the Tim Curry version and we all know that’s not like the book. So, with that out of the way, let’s talk about IT chapter 2 and why it’s a big pile of garbage trash.

There will be spoilers from this point on.  You’ve been warned.

I heard a rumor…that Umbrella Academy was pretty damn awesome

So, at last, I was able to get enough time to really focus on Umbrella Academy and finish it.  And, initial reaction:

It’s good.  It’s so good.  It’s like…really really good guys, I definitely recommend it.

But I do have a lot of feelings about it overall so I want to delve a little deeper.  There will be some spoilers in this but I will try to warn you before I give away anything big.

HIMYM, or: How I stalked a woman for two decades and your mother was a placeholder

Okay so I have literally been avoiding this for 4 years…but I finally sat down and watched all of How I Met Your Mother. I used to love this show. When it first came out, I watched it every week, without fail. I loved everyone on it, but in particular I loved Lily and Marshall. I liked the comedy. I wouldn’t realize until many years later just how awful Ted really was, in the moment he was just a fun love struck guy that got progressively worse over the years but because of the framing it wasn’t immediately apparent. When it starts he’s this hopeless romantic, and since everything is told from his point of view it isn’t until you take a step back that you realize how fucked up the whole set up is. It’s like that saying…if you put a frog in boiling water, he’ll jump out. But if you put him in regular water and slowly raise the temperature, he’ll die there. Well…I boiled myself alive on this one.

I stopped watching…I’m not entirely sure. I feel like I saw an episode here or there from all the later seasons, so I’m not sure when exactly it stopped being fun for me, I just know it did. I know it had to be sometime around when Victoria showed up again but I don’t recall exactly.

So anyway, long winded intro to say I sat down. I watched the whole series. And I know it’s been four years and this is the least topical thing ever but I didn’t have a platform to yell my inane ramblings from then, so you’re welcome.

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again

Mamma Mia is one of my all time favorite movies.  I do not think it is a good movie, per se, but I love it.  I love the music, I love the beautiful setting, I love the characters, and I love how much fun it is and how much fun everyone seems to be having while they do it.  I love this movie. It is one of my ultimate guilty pleasures, only I can’t even really call it that cause I don’t feel guilty at all. If you don’t like this movie well then I guess you just don’t like fun things.  Yeah, I said it.

So I was pretty stoked to see Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again.  Big fan of Lily James in particular and while I was confused as to why they would have so little Meryl I was game.  I went to this movie prepared to like it more than I’ve ever liked anything in my life. That………is not what happened.

I want you to be prepared before you click this read more.  I’m doing a deep dive here into Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again and if you’re not here for that then I’ve just got nothing else to offer I’m afraid.  I’m going to talk about where it went wrong, why, and how it could have been fixed. Because there was a good movie in here somewhere damn it. It had all the right pieces they just put them together wrong!

Oh and obviously…spoilers

A Wrinkle in Time

There is such a thing as a tesseract…

So…here’s the thing.  I grew up with this book.  Grew up with it to the point that on my list of tattoos, very near the top, is the quote “Wild nights are my glory.”  It’s hard to put into words why this book spoke to me.  It might have been that Meg wasn’t as smart as her brother and parents, but that she was still SMART.  It might have been that she had braces.  Limp brown hair.  It might have been that she looked and felt exactly like me.  This is something I’ll come back to later…

I was not excited to see the film version of my beloved book.  But today I did.  And I did not love it, it is true.  But I did not hate it.  And as I sat there, I realized something very important.  This movie wasn’t made for me.  It wasn’t made for fans of the book.  It was made for kids who need this story now the way I did when I was young.  There were some definite problems, but they weren’t the ones I thought they would be, and they weren’t film ruiners by any means.

From here on in there will be spoilers.

Westworld

So, I just watched the first episode of Westworld and I really wanted to write a review.  It felt like I should.  I could feel the need hovering over me.  Anyone who knows me at all knows that if you give me something about A.I. (so long as it doesn’t include Halley Joel Osment) I will be over the freaking moon.  But how can you review something when you’ve only seen one episode?

For reference, this will be 90% spoiler free.  For that exact reason.

Blade Runner, Artificial Intelligence, and the Subtle Effects of Abuse

I had never seen Blade Runner until a last night.  This might not be so shocking when you consider the fact that it came out a year before I was born, but still.  It’s a major landmark in sci-fi media and I had never seen it.  Add to that, I have a particular love of any and all media that deals with Artificial Intelligence (the abysmal movie A.I. notwithstanding).  For a very long time I’ve known that Blade Runner is a film that I not only should see, but that I would most likely enjoy a great deal.  It dealt with one of my favorite topics, it was widely agreed to be a fantastic movie, and it had one of my most beloved actors in it, Rutger Hauer.  There were a variety of reasons for me to see this film, and yet only one blocking me.

It was one of my ex’s favorite films.

A Short Note

In an effort to get more writing done, in general, I’ve downloaded a very official looking 31 Days of Writing challenge.  Now…I am notoriously bad at any kind of daily challenge.  I usually make it a couple days in and then forget or give up.  Sometimes I make it a week.

Sooooo…I’ve decided not to put any pressure on myself for this.  I’m going to do it, but if I miss a day, I’m not going to sweat it.  So, prepare yourself for 31 days…that may or may not be consecutive (most likely not) and may or may not be any good (hopefully yes in this case).

Ta!