MagnusHex
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Just finished off the fifth season of Codename: Kids Next Door earlier, and what a season! Among the Cartoon Network shows, this has gotta be one of the few series where its content still felt refreshing after five seasons (unlike The Powerpuff Girls... Craig McCracken left too soon).
And of course, to top it all off, they had a well-written TV movie as well that's aired around the same week as the season finale. I recently wrote a review for the movie that I've watched today, and of course, I'm talking about...
Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
Surprisingly well-written for a TV movie, or perhaps not that surprising, considering Mr. Warburton's effort to expand the lore of KND in interesting and imaginative ways. For this Cartoon Network special, we manage to uncover some pretty neat character development and backstories here, and whenever a movie that's spun off from a TV series contains meaningful character progressions like this, it's often a big solid plus in my book because everyone else would just create a standalone adventure that isn't connected to the TV series.
The world of Kids Next Door is a pretty fun universe where the "war against adult tyranny" has often been explored on the show in colorful ways, and this time, we get a nice origin story of how the KND started - from "Zero", if you will. Wink, wink. It's a fun time that will have the fans appreciate the lore even more.
4.5/5
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Peggy's Turtle Song
A few people at the KotH Fandom wiki hated this episode, with one calling the writers of this one pathetic. I thought it was a pretty well-written, clever and subversive take on radical feminists, and it has certainly aged like fine wine in our modern world where the line between gender equality and gender superiority is getting thinner everyday. Hank being his usual tone-deaf sexist is nothing new here, and it's definitely not out-of-character for him to be that ardent about traditional family values (before coming to a more sympathetic compromise by the end of the episode). That's essentially the show and what Hank does many episodes for these past two seasons, so I don't see why people were getting all wound up about it.
My only criticism is that it probably delivered its point a bit too subtly, thus leading to those people confused whether this was written to be an intentionally sexist episode or what.
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Alternative Cuts has done some amazing video editing that look seamless when they splice together clips from two different complete shows. Their Breaking Bad videos get the spotlight a number of times, but I really love this one just because of my love-hate relationship with the MCU:
Finally, the perfect crossover.
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Bender's Game
^ How I felt for most of the jokes.
‘“It’d be cheaper to fill the tank with Nobel Prize winner’s sperm.” The Dixie Chicks. "It’s a hobo and a rabbit. But they’re making a hobbit!” All failed to get a chuckle out of me (had to Google The Dixie Chicks).
This was easily my most bored experience watching the DTV movies of Futurama. Even season 11 of The Simpsons got a few giggles out of me some episodes. That's how bad it got.
Speaking of the season full of cheap gags, Zack Handlen of AV Club said it right, "a cheap shot is a cheap shot no matter how supposedly subversive it might be." I'm starting to realize that comedies like these that rely on gag-per-minute scenes just don't really work for me (just one reason why I despise traditional American sitcoms). It's the equivalence of Patrick laughing at a flying
elephantgiraffe.Ahahaha, I'm laughing because stuff happens (like hey, it's the Teletubbies! I remember Teletubbies!), even though the comedy doesn't build off the main plot nor the characters' quirks/personality. Never mind that it's not remotely clever; it's a dumb cartoon!
Yikes. How far Futurama has fallen.
Also really doesn't help that I'm neither a fan of Dungeons and Dragons nor Lord of the Rings. Those LotRs movies were entertaining enough (for a high-budget Hollywood blockbuster) when I watched them, but medieval fantasy is one of my least favorite genres compared to sci-fi.
And man, there were some pretty sardonic jokes here made at the characters' expense: implying Leela's a masochist with her pain collar and calling Amy a slut (their words, not mine). Phew, low-brow humor at their worst.
3/10
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37 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:
I am pretty sure that Cotton would not care at all about getting called out on Twitter, considering that people called out his bad behavior to his face and it did nothing. And besides getting called out, I am pretty sure today nothing would happen to someone like Cotton.
That's true, considering Bill Burr still has a career. OOPS.
Jokes aside though, tapping a policewoman on the butt is a little different than making "problematic" remarks about women. Directors have their careers canceled because of merely being verbally abusive towards women. Hello, Joss Whedon, you fake feminist you. And let's not even begin with Johnny Depp's ALLEGED domestic violence towards and Amber Heard, resulting in him being boycotted by Hollywood forever.
I don't know. It's a disproportionate comparison because I'm comparing celebrities with war veterans here, but I'm guessing (or at least I'm hoping) that the military has progressed enough in our age to punish one of their own.
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14 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:
How do you figure? I mean Cotton is terrible but it's not like he is someone's boss. I feel like even today a terrible person his age could probably get away with a lot of what he says and does. And if people were to call him on it he would either play the disabled war hero card or the confused (possibly senile) old man card. So I am not sure how he would face any kind of repercussions.
I kinda doubt that. Even the mildest of sexual harassments get called out today in 2022, partly thanks to Twitter's knee-jerk reactions. It's just a theory anyway, since I don't really know first-hand any veteran that got called out.
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The Beast with a Billion Backs
Eh. As Zack Handlen of AV Club accurately said in his review, BwaBB has lower highs and higher lows than Bender's Big Score. The "highs" of Bender's Big Score would be Lars' plot, which became a lot more interesting than the tentacle alien in retrospect once the plot twist was revealed at the end of the film. The "lows" of BBS were far more boring and tedious than BwaBB, but only because Bender is (ironically) far more hilarious here than in his titular movie, whether it's "No crap, my grandmother was a bulldozer" or literally shitting bricks, Bender is the MVP this movie. Also, "Missile jammed. Missile jammed." "I heard you the first time, Francine!" Hehe, that was pretty clever and got a chuckle out of me. So while BwaBB also has its share of annoying filler B-plot, they were far funnier.
I have mixed feelings about Kif's relationship this film. On one hand, yay, more Amy and Kif, both of whom make a cute couple, and the alien ceremony seems to imply they were married, so good for them... except that Zapp ruined it all by inadvertently killing Kif while never getting punished for it. Yeesh. I find it annoying whenever a character does something heinous and 1) doesn't get called out on his act, and 2) doesn't get punished for it. I guess it's something I'm expected to accept and deal with when it comes to Zapp Brannigan by this point of Futurama, but I still find it annoying. On a coincidental note, I just watched "Alone Again, Natura-Diddily" just now where a similar moron jerkass got a recurring character killed... sigh, can't believe I ended up comparing Zombie Simpsons and Futurama in the same paragraph. Oh, and that moron slept with Amy, resulting in a justifiably jealous Kif when he's resurrected, so there's that. I guess I should be happy they're doing something with Amy rather than disregarding her character altogether like large portions of the Fox era. You take what you can get.
Speaking of jealous boyfriends/husbands, people have noted that the space alien in this film is a creep who's the embodiment of the "Nice Guy," how he went all militant when Fry "cheated" (and I use this word loosely) by communicating with another universe. I personally don't hold such sentiments and didn't even observe such a flaw in the alien's personality, but hey, there you go, another reason to groan at the movie.
Let's see, did I miss anything else? Oh right - Fry completely forgot about Leela because the writers thought the audience wouldn't remember the plot of the previous film. Well, have I got news for you!!! DING DING DING! Yeah, these films don't work well when watched consecutively.
6/10
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On 11/23/2022 at 2:12 AM, Lugal said:
The dividing line between a remake and a reboot is often blurry, and reboot is often just a fancy buzzword for remake, but a reboot often takes a different tone than the original, usually darker and edgier. ex. Battlestar Galactica
Huh. I've always figured that a reboot is like a cross between a remake and a revival - set in the same universe but with different "new generation" characters, sometimes mentioning or referencing the original characters, but mostly disregarding the original continuity/characters. Or is that a requel/legacyquel? Ugh, these terms get so blurry. But thanks for clearing it up, Lugal.
I feel like the "gritty" part of reboots was incidental, being that most reboots were resurrected corpses of classic TV shows for the more modern, and therefore presumably, "cynical" audiences. For example, technically speaking, Spider-Man: Homecoming is a reboot of sorts, but it's definitely far lighter than the gritty Amazing Spider-Man films.
I also looked up on the definition of reboot on Google, and it gave me this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reboot_(fiction)
"In serial fiction, the term "reboot" signifies a new start to an established fictional universe, work, or series. A reboot discards continuity to re-create its characters, plotlines and backstory from the beginning."
Which got me thinking... what about continuity reboots? Because there have been "soft reboots" that do acknowledge continuity. Ugh. Like I said, such a mess.
I'm not keen on the Buffy reboot either, but to be fair, since there was already a Buffy remake that kinda became super-popular in the '90s, a "reimagining" being good isn't impossible. Remakes and reboots are like tropes: they're not bad when used well. For a recent example: The Batman.
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Fillmore! was a fun Disney parody of hard-boiled '70s cop drama, but set in an elementary school setting and having juvenile misdemeanor instead of serious crimes (though the show's protagonists certainly treated it as seriously). It was a fun show suitable for older audiences who might have remembered those cop shows, but alas, it only had two seasons before never showing up on Disney+. With shows like Kids Next Door treating petty children problems (like "adult tyranny") as a serious plot, Fillmore would've fitted right in the 2000s.
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The Final Shinsult
Ugh, Cotton grinds my gears everytime I see him. I don't know what it is about him that infuriates me more than most antagonists in other TV series, but I guess it might have something to do with my similar history with my own late father who wasn't exactly father of the year either. Ironically, that line about how Hank should've drowned himself two days after he was born was the one that got to me the most in this episode, even though he's said far more ridiculous things, not to mention sexually harassing a female officer. Christ, Cotton would never survive #MeToo.
And Hank's enabling him. Maybe it's because I never understood the value of filial piety even as a Chinese, but Hank's tolerance of Cotton's deplorable actions has always infuriated me. Sure, Dale's the one who became Cotton's partner in crime, but Dale's gonna Dale and do his thing of having half a brain, but Hank always had his proper judgment impaired even though he could be a better man when he doesn't have his head up his butt.
That said, I could somewhat understand his resentment towards the return of the prosthetic leg, at least in regards to his pride as a war hero. The kicker, of course, is that Cotton was obviously not even involved in the original conflict with General Santa Anna. That's another thing I could never come to agree with: blind patriotism. Though in Cotton's case, I feel that it's probably not really about patriotism so much as being a jerk about it, but it's probably a mix of both, as Cotton proves to be just as layered a character by the end of this episode as the rest of the cast when his vulnerability surfaced after he's sent to the veteran's psychiatric hospital.
In regards to the rest of season 2, I'm enjoying the series thus far, though I feel bad for Luanne because 1) she deserves way better than what the Hills provided for her, taking her for granted in some cases even, and 2) I couldn't help but think of Brittany Murphy everytime she appears... so that's fun. Sigh.
Also, Peggy shows her ugly side this season with "I Remember Mono" and "Hank's Dirty Laundry" when she became unreasonably paranoid, delusional and jealous of Hank, showing her lack of trust in her own husband (I love that Hank stood his ground to defend his innocence in not being involved with pornography). I like that she was supportive of Luanne is "Meet the Manger Babies" though, and how she tried to fight the toxic masculinity in "Bobby Slam" (even if she ended up being torn between her priorities as a mother and the feminist in her).
I also noticed a trend around the plotlines of the show: Hank believes in a dated value, he comes to a compromise and change that belief for the sake of his family, he learns a lesson by the end. It doesn't occur often enough, thankfully, to be a trend, but it is often enough that it feels tropey, so I hope this recurring structure doesn't pop up too often. Also, I dislike "Husky Bobby" because Hank's position ended up being justified in that episode even though Bobby's body-positivity should've been the one that's justified. Ah well.
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Bender's Big Score
Oh boy.
I really wanted to like this one, but it ended up feeling more frustrating than enjoyable. Fry's passive-aggressive jealousy of Leela finding happiness elsewhere is so played out it might as well have been a Friends episode featuring Ross and Rachel. If I want repetitive storylines played for cheap gags, I would watch an episode from The Simpsons post-season 10. And LaBarbara being a walking plot-device meant to infuriate Hermes again with her "affair" with Barbados (born out of her shallow perception that Hermes is worthless without a body) just wasn't really that funny for me either. At least Leela had a good reason to dump Fry's ass for "Lars": Lars actually seemed more competent and charismatic as a person.
But Lars being Fry from another timeline (DUN DUN DUN) was a nice touch though because it reminds us of a time when Fry wasn't a slightly more intelligent version of Jerkass Homer. I remember Fry was merely a lazy slacker for a while before becoming a full-blown moron. I can't remember the specific point throughout the first four seasons when Fry's intelligence dropped, but it was nice to see a version of Fry being his original "everyday man/slacker" status once again. Now if only writers could revert Homer's intelligence (or the lack thereof)...
While Fry and Leela had a sweet moment at the end of this film, do we really need another "The Devil’s Hands are Idle Playthings" rehashed? Fry and Leela already shared a moment in that would-be finale, so to mine that relationship conflict again only to have a similar "Aw, Fry's not a total idiot loser" moment feels insincere.
The antagonists and the main plot itself are... fine. They are passable. The plot does feel stretched out, and I was mostly bored because most of the jokes didn't land that well. Bender had a nice moment at the end when he outsmarted the scammers, which is cool because I kept wondering why his "big score" wasn't the main focus of the movie if it's titled as such.
And Seymour. Sigh. What a slap in the face. We didn't even get a nice reunion scene between Fry and him, just a "oh hey, guess you're alive now" moment. Then he's fossilized again, soon to be dead in another timeline. I read that a number of Redditors were fine with this scene because it explained away the plot hole how Seymour could be alive again with his organs intact if he died of old age waiting for Fry. So at the very least, this scene fixed a trivial plot hole that doesn't really affect the plot in any major way even if it wasn't resolved... yay? That's why I don't bother nitpicking about plot holes because the larger storytelling elements are what concern me, and this anticlimactic return for Seymour made me feel apathetic towards Jurassic Bark now. Who cares how that episode ends if it's just going to turn out this way? Way to go and ruin a perfect episode.
A lot of people ranked this as the best of the four DTV movies... yikes. Can't wait to see how much worse the rest are.
5/10
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This was just a nice little cold reading of The Dark Knight from Kevin Conroy I found:
Felt like it's a nice tribute to him, the greatest knight of 'em all.
For me, while TAS wasn't my first introduction to Batman (Batman (1989) was, but even then, I didn't really pay attention much to Batsy till Bale came along since I've always been a Spidey fan, growing up with Spider-Man TAS), it still felt like an important milestone in animation that struck a nice balance between mature storytelling and Saturday morning cartoon. It wasn't an adult sitcom like The Simpsons, but bravely and boldly stepped into pretty dark and mature subject matter unlike any cartoon before aired on an American children's network.
Sure, like any series, there were duds and misses like I've Got Batman in My Basement, but for the most part, it was a solid A+ animated series that revolutionalized what children's TV could do in terms of storytelling. If not for Batman: TAS, you wouldn't have the more complex cartoons like Gargoyles or Spider-Man: TAS, neither of which holds a candle to Batman: TAS. Let's not forget it preceded Hulk: TAS AND X-Men: TAS too (albeit a month for the latter), both of which also contained more mature storytelling for older kids. Batman: TAS was The Sopranos of children's cartoon.
All that said, Superman: TAS is a more consistent show though in terms of writing quality. 😋
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11 hours ago, cambridgeguy said:
I wouldn't really trust TMZ as a reliable news source, considering its tabloid nature. That being said, who knows what goes on with that franchise, with David Yost being bullied for his homosexuality.
49 is a pretty young age. It's kinda weird, because Tommy wasn't exactly my favorite ranger (it's Jason growing up, then Adam), but I've seen JDF in a couple of YouTube videos just a few years ago where he replayed his role as the White Ranger just for the fans. He was really dedicated to that, not something you could say for a lot of actors.
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Urban Legend (1998)
This was one of the Scream copycats that popped up and I since I was a fan of Scream (practically my childhood horror flick that introduced me to the genre), I got interested in watching it... much to my disappointment. It had fun moments, the way they played up the urban legends, even if it was gimmicky. But gimmicks in film could only entertain for so long, and the film just felt kinda forgettable and generic near the third act, going down the typical looney bin killer reveal that's more derivative than anything. At least Scream had the novelty of two killers (and making the obvious suspect seemed like a red herring at first).
That being said, that opening was brilliant, especially for someone who doesn't live in America like me and didn't know the urban legend of the backseat killer when I first saw the film.
Making Brad Dourif the red herring, giving his character a serial killer vibe with his stuttering, and that wicked reveal as Brad shouted "SOMEONE'S IN THE BACK SEEEEAT!" with that music cue. Damn, such a well-edited scene. If only the rest of the film felt as visceral and clever. I initially liked that she was at least clever enough to bring a bottle of Mace along and using the telephone to smash the door open, so you'd think that this was gonna be a subversion of the typical damsel in distress, but NOPE. Big nope.
Sigh. This scene has always stuck with me, despite the rest of the film existing.
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6 hours ago, proserpina65 said:
Not really a unanimous opinion.
*shrugs* Eh. I said it was "arguably flawed" in my original post on Reddit, then someone corrected me and said it was unanimously flawed. lol I'll just leave it to open interpretation.
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On 11/14/2022 at 5:44 PM, Rushmoras said:
Watched South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (1999). Finally understood from were back in primary-middle school someone was singing that Uncle Fu**a song in a class-room. Um, I know I watched a couple of episodes of South Park way back in the day when I was just a pupil (like everyone else in school) and I very much liked it back then, because it was unique and nothing we have seen before, but now, from an adult stand-point, having watched South Park movie, I've got to say that it overstays it's welcome maybe after 40 min. mark, by becoming repetitive and annoying.
6/10
Eh, I liked it for the way it mocked animated musicals in a time when Disney dominated the market during the Renaissance Era. The musical sequences were fun, especially the Les Mis parody.
I still stand by what I wrote in my last review after my second viewing:
QuoteAnd the script's pretty brilliant when you think about the time it was released in. Their biggest rival was the House of Mouse itself that would eventually come to obtain the other big-name adult animation, the Simpsons family. In the '90s, however, their big game was the Renaissance Era, filled with musicals of ripped off fairy tales watered down for the family crowd. Trey and Matt, however, pretty much turned their movie into an anti-PC musical full of swear words and musical parodies, with Satan and Saddam Hussein doing musical numbers that were full of heart and finesse. That's a pretty ballsy move even back then, when Disney wasn't the mega-monopoly-maniacal maniac that bought every company today.
The biggest strength of South Park has always been its topical content and its relevancy, so the movie did a great job with that, making fun of those Disney musicals by having Satan and Hussein starring in a musical that's as heartwarming as Disney's "wholesome" material. That's the joke. Helps that I grew out of those Disney films and don't really look back at them fondly, especially with their problematic "wholesome" messages.
Anyway, just finished watching...
Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog
I didn't expect much from the crossover film since I wasn't a big fan of Scooby-Doo. I've seen episodes here and there in my youth, but I didn't really grow up with it like many Americans did. I always felt that it's a bit too goofy for my taste, even as a cartoon.
But to my surprise, this was a pretty solid send-off for Courage the Cowardly Dog. Not only were the characters of both shows written well in accordance to their respective franchise (something writers mess up more easily than you'd expect in a crossover), there's also major recurring characters showing up again on the Courage side of the film (Katz, Le Quack, the General and his Lieutenant, and even the Computer is back!), when a lot of crossover films would just use standalone side characters for the story instead, so it was a nice tribute for the old show.
More importantly, we finally get a nice explanation for all the weird things happening in Nowhere AT LAST, which again, is fitting for the series finale for the show. That is, of course, assuming they don't do any more Courage entries in the future, which seems fitting with Thea White's passing after voicing Muriel for ALL entries of the Courage franchise, including this one. Speaking of which, I also enjoyed Jeff Bergman's take on Eustace, certainly more than Wallace Shawn's take in The Fog of Courage (which was decent, but sounded nothing like Eustace compared to even Bergman's performance).
The main plot is functional, but it served its purpose to give Courage fans a good time again with its usual hijinks, and it's a really nice touch that the antagonists turned out to be the recurring antagonists from Courage.
I think the best part of the film is easily Eustace's Outta Nowhere sequence that literally came outta nowhere. I'm glad they gave him the spotlight instead of just making him do his routine grumblings.
Overall, a fun time to be had. I'll miss that purple fluffy pup.
9/10
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HBO Max had a pop-up that reminded me that it's the 50th anniversary for the network this year. I looked it up on YouTube and found this nice little tribute:
I don't really believe that HBO today is on the same level as its Sopranos peak era in the 2000s, but I'd still like to believe that it's still quality television on some level. So, as a tribute to the network, I'll quote something I've written eight months ago:
QuoteI mean, this is the same network that produced:
- The Sopranos
- The Wire
- Oz
- Six Feet Under
- Sex and the City
- Big Love
- Curb your enthusiasm
- John Adams
- Rome
- Generation Kill
- Westworld
- Deadwood
- True Detective
- Band of Brothers
- Chernobyl
- The Leftovers
- Boardwalk Empire
- And let's not forget, Succession
Sure, many of those shows are over 10 years, but they still defined many of the elements that modern television emulate today, especially freaking Sopranos.
Game of Thrones is unanimously considered flawed with its latter four seasons, but it still brought event television to the modern family. It still managed to capture the attention on a global scale, something few network TV in America could say the same. Most people outside the US knows what Game of Thrones is even if they haven't even watched it, just like how most people know what Star Wars or Lord of the Rings is. I don't think even Stranger Things has that kind of universal reach (especially with its references to American culture).
And to go back to my huge list above, it also shows that HBO is capable of producing excellent television across multiple genres, not just crime drama like The Wire and True Detective, but also a romance drama for women (Sex and the City) and a morbid drama set in a funeral home (Six Feet Under). HBO knows range.
So yes, I'll recite the same company motto that pop ups whenever I tuned into HBO on cable back in the 2000s: "HBO: Simply the best." Because it truly is.
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1 hour ago, sistermagpie said:
Wait, who's Henry?
lol Sorry, I meant Harry.
1 hour ago, sistermagpie said:I actually didn't think Betty did buy Don's sappy romantic words. I thought she just decided it was her best option, since she wasn't ready to face divorce.
I suppose that's true. Something to do with her rep as a divorced mum, if I recall?
I would like to think that she's refraining from divorce out of her concern for her kids... but man, from what I've seen so far how she treats her children and what I heard down the line in future seasons, I doubt it.
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Mad Men, season 2, episode 13: Meditations in an Emergency
It's so like Betty to buy into Don's sappy romantic words. Here's a man who could lie so easily he instantly pulled out a convenient excuse for abandoning Campbell because he SUPPOSEDLY thought Campbell was ready. There might have been some truth to that excuse, but I have a hard time buying that Don likes, and more importantly, respects Campbell enough to have that kind of concern for him.
And of course, Pete ate it all up because of his daddy issues. His ego is still so fragile that he immediately returned to his one trophy of manhood - his rifle he exchanged his wedding gift for - when Peggy revealed to him his loss at a chance for happiness. Pete has grown, admittedly, but not by much. Same with Betty. But that makes sense, seeing as we're only in season 2.
I never liked Duck. I felt that he was rather forgettable and didn't stand out enough as a character for me to like him. I would even take Harry over Duck because at least Harry's flaws were interesting. Duck's one distinct trait was shared with Freddy Rumsen (and even arguably Don Draper and Roger Sterling): being an alcoholic, except that Freddy is at least loyal to both Don and the company while Duck went behind the company's back to pull a merger, albeit informing them after the fact. I think that was the first time Duck became a character I bothered to pay attention to, when he backstabbed SC. I know Bert and Roger were amicable towards the merger after Duck informs them, but I still feel like it was a backstab Duck did to boost his lukewarm career. Ironically, instead of a boost, both his career and character spiraled down further after this episode, after Don one-ups him with his "I don't have a contract" comeback. I have my issues with Don, but I respect his confidence and loyalty (to the company and his male friends anyway, even if he couldn't keep his pistol in his pants), neither of which Duck possesses.
But anyway, speaking of Don, I doubt this marriage will prosper much longer despite his latest attempt to repair it. I'll bet 50 that Don will cheat again.
Or maybe even Betty.
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Sopranos Season 2, Episode 13: Funhouse
Even though Satin Armor pretty much wrapped things up nice and good, this is still a fantastic episode though because it contains that nice atmospheric storytelling Sopranos is good at, how you could feel the tension and uncertainty in the air even though, supposedly, everything's coming up Sopranos. Even Tony acknowledged this himself, that if he had spent just a bit more time with Livia, maybe that rub with the Feds, no matter how trivial it turned out to be, might not have went down. Nothing lasts forever, not even the mighty Soprano empire. Doesn't help that the premise description for season 3's first episode says that the Feds are going to find a new way to put the squeeze on Tony. It's Pussy today, maybe somebody else tomorrow will flip. Someday, that ocean that claimed Pussy will be coming for Tony too. Really love the montage at the end, with Tony's cigar-chewing face fading away into the rolling tides.
And even with Pussy's death, despite having been spoiled, it's yet another great example of how the details of a well-written scene can give it more meaning than some Internet spoiler can give you. For example: how drawn out Pussy's execution was; how Sil had to go up to get some fresh air at the thought of executing someone he grew up with; and how even Tony was devasted by the inevitable punishment he mush dish out despite exterminating other rats before. The only one being stone-cold about it is Paulie, and some have called him sociopathic for this particular scene (I don't believe he's literally sociopathic since he's displayed emotions before, like fear). And while I do think Paulie's a bigger scumbag than Tony at times... I respect his professionalism in performing a hit. I like characters who are professional and competent at their jobs, even if they're making a living by killing the living. He knows it had to be done.
That being said, I like how Tony draws out the execution as much as possible. Shows how reluctant he is towards this particular hit and how close he was with Pussy. One could only hope he would feel as much hesitance when he does Christopher in (in season 6, I believe). Yeah, I've been spoiled a lot about this show. 😆
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1 hour ago, Constant Viewer said:
I think Alice is Bert's sister. So that makes her name Alice Cooper!
Thanks for the correction. It's hard to tell sometimes with Mad Men.
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Breaking Bad - 2x12: Phoenix
Well, erm. How about that ending, eh?
Like I said, I already knew Jane was going to go, but I had thought it would be more dramatic in a Vince Gilligan Crazy 8 manner, not murder through happenstance. It's not even murder, technically speaking, and in most American states, negligence to save another life isn't a crime. The situation ended up more like Tuco's death with Hank just coincidentally stopping by at the right time. It's the kind of anticlimactic death that would appear in Knight in White Satin Armor is what I'm saying.
But damn, there were a number of red flags planted even prior to her death. Jane telling her father she would go to rehab the following day (it's like showing a soldier's family photo) and threatening Walt were the big signs that she's gonna get got by the end of this episode. Never threaten the protagonist (and especially the source of drama that keeps the show going, in this case, his meth career); even Gus Fring didn't get away with it.
But you know what? That's not even the most shocking part of the episode for me. In previous circumstances prior to this episode, we've seen Walt's personality transition to Heisenberg in shades. There were signs that the monster was growing inside him. But I think that with previous cases, his arrogance was still tolerable for me because I'm a pretty insecure person myself who understands how you could let your ego swallow you up and make some appalling decisions.
Boasting about your drug money to your own fucking baby to soothe your ego crosses the line for me. Pathetic, Walt. Fucking pathetic.
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4 minutes ago, Black Knight said:
Walt/Skyler is a perfect example of what I mentioned. While individual people like yourself may have been equal-opportunity in regards to them, taking the fandom as a whole there's no question that Skyler came in for much more criticism than Walt did.
True enough. I guess for me, I had the privilege of watching the show years after it ended. That led me to quite an amount of spoilers, most of which detailed how Walt is an unsympathetic monster. The difference between him and Tony Soprano, however, is that Breaking Bad had us fooled that Walt was still worth sympathizing over at the beginning of the show (instead of realizing he's always been Heisenberg).
6 minutes ago, Black Knight said:I agree that Xena differs from later flawed protagonists in always trying to be better. It doesn't change how remarkable it was to see the show feature a flawed female protagonist of any kind in an era where that wasn't even common yet for male protagonists, to the point its own sister show was too afraid to do anything like that with Hercules.
I really didn't want to bring it up since I didn't want it to steal the spotlight of cult '90s feminist shows, but... Buffy and Willow. Just saying. Willow literally went dark magic, though to be fair, her full transformation came in the 2000s, when The Sopranos (and Oz) have already aired.
But anyway, it doesn't matter, because the following episode proved me wrong about just how brilliant the show could be in writing Xena as a flawed protagonist, and that episode is...
Xena, season 2, episode 20: The Price
After last episode's fun but ultimately lukewarm writing, this one was solid gold in comparison. In fact, I'd even go on to say it's one of the top 3 episodes in the first two seasons thus far (with "Is There a Doctor in the House?" among them). There's a reason shows like Buffy was remembered among other '90s TV shows even today, and it's because of that realistic growth in its characters that's now part-and-parcel of modern serialized storytelling. Xena could've very well been just a one-note straight arrow seeking redemption because, to be honest, her whole "I've gotta pay for my crimes" schtick was getting a bit grating by season 2. But I really like what they did here in this episode, reminding us of the timeless adage antihero protagonists love to use: "People don't change." At least not in any meaningful way. Whom Xena was in the past continues to haunt her this episode as the worst parts of her warrior persona surface.
There's a trope in fiction where an antihero had you convinced that they're on the path of redemption, but maybe in season 2 or even later, a secondary character would observe that they've always been Heisenberg since season 1 and they could never change, stuck being that awful, terrible person. For me, this episode felt like it had such a trope (or at least something similar since Xena does change thanks to Gabrielle's influence), which I think was brilliant because remember: this was the '90s before complex antiheroes blew up. I like the realism of how Xena couldn't just abandon her decades of murder and mayhem behind like some cartoon character; that baggage is going to be part of her life for quite some time, certainly for more than two seasons at least.
Aside from Xena and Gabrielle's excellent character writing though, what drew me more to the episode was its anti-war theme. For some reason, anti-war storylines always get a kick out of me, probably because I hate fighting or just violence in general. At the same time, I understood that Xena had to make the tough call, so this episode was brilliant in that it wasn't just a one-note propaganda about how "war is bad," but a layered script where both Xena and Gabrielle tackled the tough questions of what sacrifices or compromises one should make in the face of war and death. Or as Garrus Vakarian put it in Mass Effect 3: the ruthless calculus of war.
"All the questions... and every one of them with a million lives riding on the answer. Though I'm starting to understand why the galaxy needs coldhearted dictators every now and then - they don't give a damn about the consequences. Suppose that's what it's going to take: the ruthless calculus of war. Ten billion people over here die so twenty billion over there can live."
Mass Effect 3 had a really great impact on me in terms of giving me a taste of what the weight of war is like, especially because it's a franchise where you the player have to make the tough call. So when Xena had to make those decisions when people started dying... well, let's just say I don't really begrudge her actions. She got the job done, and more people would've died if she hadn't taken charge.
But that's why Gabrielle's presence was crucial in balancing that fiery spirit of hers so that Xena could retain her humanity. She's her second in command in military terms. It's for that reason why I understood why Xena snapped at her, telling her not to question her commands in front of her troops. There's a nuance to that statement because she didn't just say not to question her, but not to question her in front of her subordinates. It reminds me of a similar conversation Data had with Worf on Star Trek: TNG, when the latter questioned the former's decisions in front of the crew. Data retorted that while it was fair for the second in command to voice out against decisions they don't find to be the best decisions (because that's their role), Data stated that Worf should've done so in private, not make a circus out of it. I understand the logic of it because weakening the men's faith in the leader is only going to weaken the foundation of the entire squad. This was Xena in her Warrior Mode, so she took her role as a military leader very seriously.
And man, it's impressive how brutal this episode delve into the horrors of war. Two scenes in particular stood out to me: 1) the crucifixion scene where Xena claimed that "those men are already dead," refraining from saving them, which I also thought was a sound military strategy because there couldn't have been a more obvious trap than those crucified men, and 2) the "interrogation" scene, which didn't land as hard as the writers tried because we've seen Xena's pressure point technique countless times, and it really didn't help that Palaemon already proved Xena wouldn't kill with the technique a couple of episodes ago. That said, the interrogation scene, especially in its anti-war context, really reminded me of 9/11 and the "terrorist interrogations," even though this episode came out before 2001. I feel like with Xena in the desperate situation she was stuck in, a fight to the death with limited resources, she might've considered ending the Horde member's life had Gabrielle not stopped her. Both scenes really made the episode felt different from the others, like the stakes were raised and the show was ready to take it to a more grounded and even grittier level, addressing some very uncomfortable compromises soldiers in real life had to commit in times of war.
That crucifixion scene in particular was what made me first realized that it's going to be a very special episode of Xena because, while we had crucifixions before in the show, the context here felt more disturbing and layered, and it wasn't going to be just another simple heroic rescue mission. Xena would have to make some morally questionable decisions. Or as Lucy Lawless wisely put it: "There are no good choices (in war) - only lesser degrees of evil."
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4 hours ago, Espy said:
OMG I initially thought you meant Don molested his son Bobby, and I thought how could I not remember THAT?
Yeah, that's a misspelling there on my part. lol See, this is what happens when you have two characters of similar spelling in the show, especially if they're of distinctly different age range and opposite gender...
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Futurama - General Discussion
in Futurama
Into the Wild Green Yonder
Phew. Finally, I'm done with these films. This last one was indeed better than the previous two films, but I'd still say that in terms of consistently engaging me, Bender's Big Score kept me more engaged with Fry's adventure into the past, so in terms of ranking:
The jokes regarding sexism in this film did not age very well in my opinion. Maybe it's just me, but I find sexist jokes uncomfortable regardless of which side of the spectrum it's directing the humor at, especially in 2022 when the "men bad" narrative becomes disingenuous and just feels like cheap easy laughs in general without substance to them. But to be fair, at least Yonder tries to paint both genders to be just as ignorant, with the feministas ineffectively making their point by 1) murdering someone, kind of, 2) be reduced to tired female valley girl stereotypes, and 3) have Leela harboring the Dark One that not only constantly bit her whenever it got the chance, but also outright murdered one of their members. Meanwhile, the men are insufferable sexist cartoons that don't match the very real behavior of sexism in our world whatsoever, so it's hard to take either seriously. I guess that's the joke, but it's not one I found myself laughing at very often, once again feeling tedium rather than humor.
Oh, and Fry loves Leela again after his breakup with Colleen or whatever. Who cares by this point if the writers can't keep their continuity straight between Leela and Fry? (meanwhile, other less significant details like the Dark One slug being the sandworm in Bender's Game are kept consistent; talk about low-hanging fruits).
The third act did feel the most enjoyable though, but only because of the grandiose sci-fi plot around the Encyclopod, a plot which feels rather undercooked. The visual sight of seeing the creature come alive again was nice and would've been a nice spectacle at the theater, but I couldn't really get myself to care that much about the fate of the giant deity batoid as it doesn't have enough of a personality for me to care, merely a concept for me to behold.
All in all, it's not completely terrible, but I had more enjoyment watching Fry's adventures during Bender's Big Score, and that's saying something since I gave that film 5/10. Yonder does have the benefit of not retroactively insulting me with a retcon though, so at least there's that.
6/10