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.

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.

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.