SPOILER WARNING

Watched some more Caped Crusader, and while still overall good, I think some of the weaknesses are shining through a bit. Overall didn’t like the episode where Batman saved every single Robin from Vampire Wednesday Addams at the carnival. Felt a little too “look, we know the names” when these could have just been generic kids. And basically were just generic kids.

But I think what’s really starting to feel weird to me is the dissonance between the presumably 1940s setting and modern diversity choices. I’m not one to be opposed to diversity in media, far from it, but I feel like it should feel authentic, and I don’t get authenticity from this. The show doesn’t mention any racial struggle at all, heck, it’s essentially race blind, and barely touches on misogyny faced by Detective Montoya in one episode and then completely forgets it.

Because I’m sorry, but for Gotham City to have a black commissioner of police in the 1940s? That’s a big deal, quite possibly a historical impossibility. His daughter is the top public defender in the city - both black and a woman. Nobody bats an eye at Montoya being openly lesbian.

And if this show were set in modern times, that wouldn’t be an issue in the slightest. But in this show, that while it goes unsaid, seems to set itself squarely in the early 1940s? It makes it feel like both the setting and the diversity are shallow and cosmetic only. And that’s disappointing.

Because the fact of the matter is that the 1940s were even less kind to minorities and women than our current society is. And I think it’s a bit irresponsible to completely ignore that because you want to have gangsters in fedoras and flashbulb cameras and Golden Age of Hollywood murder mysteries.

I don't think B:CC or BTAS were either set in the '40s. It's more that they are in a timeline where the 40's design aesthetic never changed. Kind of like how in the Fallout universe, design progress stopped in the '50s while technology kept marching forward.

So cars are still super cool swoopy steel monsters, everything is art deco, and there's gargoyles for days, but it's a modern society.

I know it’s not outright stating it, but I dunno, feels a bit more genuinely 40s than B:TAS was. I dunno. Just feels odd to me, like they want their period piece aesthetic but were too scared to actually do the work that comes with making a period piece, especially from this specific era.

I could be reading too deeply into it, probably am, but it feels to me like a disconnect.

This was my issue with the race-swap of Unity Kinkaid in the Sandman TV series. England was not exactly known for the ability for people-of-color to amass industrial/agricultural wealth, establish themselves in England, and casually become extremely well-integrated in upper class society. "Magic Sugar" indeed! This is simply not how English (and later British) agriculture/wealth played out, starting with the invasion of Ireland, through the chartered companies/plantations, through conquering the subcontinent, and seizure of other Asian properties.

As I have written before: I thought the race-swap of Rose Walker was fine (and I like the actor!); I think it is more close-minded to think that folks can't accept dark-skinned children of pink-skinned grandparents. More than any other swap/remix in the series, I think the Unity Kinkaid one exposes just how simplisticly considered they likely were.

I finally got around to watching The Specials, which I first heard about when James Gunn was first making a splash in the MCU. This is essentially a movie about a comic-book superteam, but without the super powers. Faint praise to follow.

It wasn't a waste of my time (by any measure), and it crossed the threshold into "gonna write something about it", but it is mostly a curiosity. This movie is more than a concept, and more than a series of disjointed sketches, but it isn't much more. If you aren't familiar with it, check out the cast list! It appears to have been made for about $1M (not bad!) and the box office take was $13K (not good!).

I find it hard to criticize such a low-cost film that had me smiling at various points. There are some other emotions in there, but the writing and performances simply didn't land them for me. I want to say that a slight amount of script polishing would have gone a long way. For example, there is a character (US Bill) who has a lot of introductory schtick, but a single two-hander scene late in the movie pays off big (at least for me). The germ of this was there for pretty much all the other characters, but most of the rest of the film felt very clumsy to me.

We've started Bad Monkey on Apple TV. It's a Vince Vaughn crime comedy that feels a lot like other recent "celebrities in paradise deal with weird stuff" like Palm Royale and White Lotus, but it's put into an easy recommend for me thanks to the snarky narrator.

Also watched Wicked Little Letters last night. It's a fun period piece with Olivia Coleman being tormented by the regular delivery of utterly scandalous anonymous mail. Never gets quite as funny as I think it could, but a great cast and well done.

Most of the way through ”The Greatest Night in Pop” on Netflix, a documentary covering the making of “We Are the World”. It’s kind of amazing that this thing happened at all, let alone with as little friction as it had. It’s also incredibly cool to hear the people involved talking about it - not just your Lionel Richies or your Bruce Springsteens, but also the sound mixers and videographers and whatnot. If you’re a music fan, a music history fan, I highly recommend it.

It is Summer 1988. After inheriting a box of comics which includes a few issues of the DC limited series Watchmen, I find myself taking a train to a local Waldenbooks to buy a copy of the Warner Books trade paperback edition of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons Watchmen. I read it over the course of approximately one week.

It is Summer 1992. I have been revisiting Watchmen annually each summer. This Summer I am reading a copy of the Graphitti Designs slipcase edition I have bargain purchased at the Chicago Comicon.

It is early Spring 2009 and I am in a movie theater watching the Zach Snyder adaptation. I am impressed, but the power fails almost two hours into the movie, not to return. It takes approximately 20 minutes for a manager to provide me with a complimentary ticket to see the film in its entirety. It is several days before I can see the film. I remain impressed, but certain choices confuse me. The experience with the manager makes me question if I got my money’s worth.

It is 2010 and I am quite disappointed by the Watchmen HeroClix.

It is Summer 2012 and I am watching a remaindered DVD copy of The Motion Comic. This is a panel-by-panel single-reader adaptation of the comic book. It is worth the $1 I paid for it.

It is 2012 and I am ignoring Before Watchmen.

It is Summer 2017 and I am watching the Ultimate Zach Snyder cut. There are no other memories related to this event, possible tachyon particle exposure is suspected.

It is Fall 2019 and I am having my mind blown by the HBO mini-series. The Doomsday Clock comic series finishes around this time and is retroactively removed from all memory.

It is Summer 2024 and I am watching a new animated adaptation of the first half of Watchmen by JMS. I am fine with the art. The adaptation is faithful, albeit rushed once the content of issue 1 is complete. This version allows both more and less of the original comic into the story to make it to the screen. I can recommend for fans of the source material. For others, I am less certain.

Snyder’s Watchmen is such a weird creature. On the surface, it’s pretty straight as an adaptation. Does the right sequence of events with the right words and very specific images. But I think the surface is all Zack Snyder has as a filmmaker, and I think that’s as far as he ever got in reading Watchmen.

Because his subtext for Watchmen shoved his own worldviews into the story, completely ruining it. Rorschach isn’t a demented weirdo dressing up his own hang ups as a quest for justice, he’s a righteous objectivist, the last sane man in a world gone mad. The death of the Comedian isn’t a sad, tired old man getting brutalized and then thrown out a window. It’s a super macho badass slowmo kung fu fight that Comedian happened to lose. Comedian brutally massacring the Vietcong or violently suppressing protests isn’t a horrific abuse of power, it’s a bold and heroic action against a nefarious enemy set to a cool soundtrack.

I remember enjoying Watchmen in theaters, but boy does it just not hold up to scrutiny or any kind of thought.

Project #66: Brick

He ate it up whole. Loved it and enjoyed all the snap and flash of it. And who can really blame him, right? The humor lands and breaks the tension and reminds you of the absurdity of it all, and then he shoves you right back into it all like it's serious. Pure fun.

I really enjoyed Brick. It does the noir crime genre proud. It is the one of the very few DVDs I bought from Blockbuster when they closed up; I can't honestly recall if I bought any others from them!

I was looking at Vulture's running list of 2024 TV cancellations. I've watched very few of these shows, and there are a couple on my "maybe I'll get to them list." I'm not at all surprised by cancellation of The Acolyte, at least it can be the one Star Wars property that had a happy ending! I think it might have survived despite being an easy target for identity-politics critics if not for the terrible construction of the way the story was presented. I'm also not surprised that Halo was cancelled; I don't think it ever generated buzz for the struggling Paramount+ and I can't even recall what the second season was about, besides releasing the Flood.

I watched all of the first season of Time Bandits. I'll give it 3 out of 4 stars. This is a fun, family-friendly watch. The cast is quite good, and I appreciated that I found it necessary to watch several episodes before they grew on me... this may seem like a back-handed compliment, but I think it makes sense given the character arcs, such as they are.

I do have warnings/criticisms! The first is that the story doesn't quite have an ending after the final episode. I suppose what happens (no spoilers!) could be seen as "the end", but more than any other first TV season in this era, this feels like a hedge for a possible second season... which I'm not sure is guaranteed.

My other criticism is that the series throws a LOT of narrative threads on the table, and it is essentially random which ones get addressed. I can entertain the notion that some of them were explicitly established for a future season, but as I (essentially) binged the show it looks a lot more like certain things were either forgotten or half-baked. (At least one of the dropped threads was to accommodate behind-the-scenes issues between actors, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

Finally, the show is a Taika Waititi joint. It has a Taika intensity of 8 out 10, which is probably 2 too many for me. Jemaine Clement is quite good in his role.

...
This helped me to wake up on this lazy Sunday morning.
Well, the ice cold and ultra fizzy can of Coca Cola that exited my nose as I read this did. Anyway, I'm finally awake now. Thanks.

We all love that guy.
I guess we'll have to give it a look now.

I’m one episode in on Kaos on Netflix, and it is not what I expected and absolutely glorious. You like Greek mythology? Check this show out. I know I’m hooked.

Now two in, and yes. It’s still fantastic, and it’s still a must-see. I don’t want to say too terribly much because I feel like it’s better not knowing too much about it before you begin, but I mean come on- you’ve got Jeff Goldblum as Zeus, and I feel like that at the very least is worth the price of admission.

Project #67: Punch Drunk Love

I enjoy this movie and the acting being done so very much. Thankfully, he enjoyed it as well and appreciated Barry's struggles.

I don't want to say more, except to mention this was from the Criterion bluray and delivered on the clarity and excellence.