I’m gonna jump right in here this week, as a bunch of folks disappointed me, and I need to get this off my chest. At first, I thought maybe I shouldn’t write about it, but then I realized that the 5 people who read this site regularly are not the ones to which I’m referring, so it’s cool.
So, the family and I saw the live action Lilo & Stitch last weekend, and we loved it. That’s Lindsay’s favorite Disney film, so she was looking forward to this version more than the kids were. Sure, there were some changes, but nothing as egregiously unnecessary as the stuff they added to the live action The Little Mermaid. Now, I know the online folks hate these live action remakes, as they make it known EACH and EVERY time one is released (Although I don’t remember anyone saying shit when Beyoncé needlessly starred in that remake of The Lion King…). Knowing the Online Crowd as I do, I sort of knew they were already poised to hate it. What I didn’t expect, however, was how many virtue signalers were gonna lose their shit over the movie’s ending. That, and the fact that there was no crossdressing. Some folks were BIG MAD about that, which is…weird.
You can probably tell I’m gonna spoil some stuff, but here’s your warning. So, I saw the original Lilo & Stitch in theaters, over 2 decades ago. It didn’t make much of an impression on me, so it’s not something I hold dear. Can’t even tell you I remembered the ending, so I was surprised to leave the theater, hop online, and see folks just frothing at the mouth. You see, in the original film, Lilo’s older sister, Nani, gives up on her dreams to stay and parent little sister Lilo. Their parents had died shortly before the start of the film, and Nani had been struggling to keep social services from taking Lilo away from her. The hook is that they’re “Ohana”, which we’re told means “family”, but also that “nobody gets left behind”. So, the message of that film is, seemingly, “family over everything”. The live action film, however, takes a different path. When Nani is considering giving up her dream of becoming a marine biologist (George Costanza would be proud), neighbor, and Aunt stand-in, Tūtū reminds Nani that “no one gets left behind” also includes oneself. You can’t effectively take care of others if your needs aren’t being met, as well. It’s at this point that Tūtū offers to take in Lilo, as they’re family, even if not by blood. So, instead of limiting the definition of “Ohana” to blood relatives, the live action version actually expands the definition into something of an “it takes a village” approach. And people had problems with this?!
I have sat on Al Gore’s internet for over 3 decades, and in recent years I have watched as you all have boasted about cutting out “toxic people” and prioritizing “self care”. Pretty much anything to make you feel better about your selfishness. Because that’s really what it is, to a point. But I disagree with y’all here, as this ending sounds like exactly what you’ve been promoting over the years. Nani prioritized her own needs so that she could be a better caregiver for Lilo. Instead, however, I’ve heard such hyperbole as “Nani gave her over to the colonizers!” and “Nani gave her up to the government!” Keep in mind that most of these folks didn’t even see the film. They just read a Slate article, or saw a YouTube video by KyraSedgelord69420. They didn’t even have the wherewithal to go see it themselves.
It’s not easy being a caregiver. I should know. It’s worse than parenthood, as you typically chose to be in that position, one way or another. But I’m talking when it’s not your kid. I am legally responsible for two elderly people, one of whom has dementia. I didn’t ask for this. One of them isn’t even my parent. But I do it because there’s no one else to do it. That’s what happens. Some of us just can’t cut people out. Maybe we should. Maybe we’re not built that way. But if I had help, I’d take it in a heartbeat. And that’s what Nani was being offered. They didn’t put Lilo into “The System”. She didn’t go into foster care. On paper, all this arrangement did was make sure she got food stamps and health insurance. Otherwise, her living arrangement was basically undisturbed, as she was now sleeping mere feet from where she used to sleep, living with people she’s known her entire life.
And for the people with some sort of societal axe to grind here, let me remind you that this is a movie about a fucking alien that comes to Earth. You didn’t seem to have all these moral issues with ALF, who was eating all the cats in the neighborhood. Get your fucking lives together! If only you gave this much of a shit about stuff that mattered, then maybe the world wouldn’t be such a dumpster fire. But you keep telling me how “Disney is teaching our children the wrong message”, when you don’t have a clue what curriculum is being used in their school. Stop pretending to be so worried about those kids you never mention except to use them to bolster a weak argument.
And for the rest of you weirdos, there is crossdressing, as Pleakly wears a yellow outfit that was clearly 90s female fashion, right down to the mini backpack purse. Sorry Billy Magnussen didn’t put on a full dress for ya. Write a letter!
Trailer Park
Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie (Theaters, September 26)
I didn’t really know much about Gabby’s Dollhouse, as my girls don’t watch it, so I didn’t even know what network it was on. Apparently, it’s a Netflix show, that debuted in 2o21. It currently has 11 seasons and 76 episodes? IN FOUR YEARS?! I totally blame cable for ruining the concept of “season”, and that carried over to streaming. Anyway, I sorta knew of the franchise because I always saw the toys in Target, in that Not Barbie aisle. At a glance, it was simply “Cute Girly Shit”. So, this trailer was my introduction to the whole concept. Gloria Estefan is the grandma here, meaning The Miami Sound Machine had a few days of shore leave for her to take this job. Apparently, Gabby here is the same one from the show, so I’m glad there was no nefarious recasting at play. We’re not here to talk about either of them, though. No, we’re here to talk about Kristen Wiig, who clearly steals the motherfucking show. Yes, I’m still getting used to all the work she’s had done, but she looks good. She invested that SNL money wisely. She is devouring scenery here, almost like this is her take on Will Ferrell’s Mugatu from Zoolander. This looks like one of those films where, 15 years from now, some studio exec is gonna reveal there’s actually an R-rated cut in a vault somewhere, as Wiig was All Improv, and most of what was shot couldn’t be used in a children’s film. My youngest seemed to really like this trailer, so I guess I have my excuse to go see this in the theater.
Good Fortune (Theaters, October 17)
This movie has been a LONG time coming. Something like a decade. Production got shut down on it twice, for Covid and other reasons. Plus, Aziz got canceled. I have a LOT of feelings about that whole thing, as he’s probably the lone figure from the #MeToo era that I never stopped supporting. Seriously, read up on that whole thing and you’ll probably see what I mean. Anyway, I’ve been rooting for him, and this film, but this is…different. First off, its saving grace is gonna be its cast. He’s got a stacked cast, and Keanu is at a place in his career where he can regress back to Ted Theodore Logan, and everyone thinks he’s being “tongue-in-cheek”. I’m smart enough to know this isn’t gonna be a “hit” – not financially, at least. Still, I hope it turns out to be a critical darling, and starts Aziz on his path to redemption. I felt he had a unique comedic voice, and I’ve missed it these past few years.
King of the Hill (Hulu, Aug 4)
I haven’t been this intrigued by a revival since Girl Meets World. The thing that was great about King of the Hill was how it acknowledged the passage of time, and the fact that it didn’t end on some sort of cataclysmic event that they’d need to retcon to explain this revival. I also love that this is simply Season 14, and not considered a new series or anything. This has been online for roughly 10 minutes, and I’ve already watched it a ton. Why don’t the guys wanna hang in the alley with the black guy? I’m really having a hard time with 21 year old Bobby. And how are they gonna explain Dale? I mean, they could easily say Luann and Lucky moved away, but Dale is a pretty important ingredient of the show. I still don’t want this, but I don’t seem to have a choice, so now I’m bracing myself for it, and hoping for the best.
Run The Numbers
So, we’ve crossed the halfway mark for trade paperbacks and graphic novels, so that’s a good sign. Still doing terribly on books. I’ll get around to them. Read a handful of comics, but they’re all part of the same series, so I’ll talk about those when I’m done with the run. On a whim, I decided to read the recent Outsiders series from DC, as it’s something I’d been curious about, and it seemed pretty “low stakes” at only 11 issues.
If you’ve heard anything at all about this series, it was probably someone comparing it to the old Wildstorm series Planetary, which was by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday. We’ll come back to that. I’ve mentioned that parenting had sort of derailed my comic reading, so I tend to stick to miniseries, or out-of-continuity tales, as they don’t require me to know the current state of any given comic universe. This series, however, demanded homework, and I didn’t know where to start. It was clearly the aftermath of some sort of crisis, but I don’t know if that was with a lowercase or capital “C”. As you know, “Crisis” used to indicate a pretty important event at DC Comics, but in the late 00s they just started throwing that word at any crossover event, lessening its impact.
As this series launched as a Dawn of DC book, this means they were putting the Rebirth era to bed, and emerging from the Dark Crisis and Lazarus Planet events. I didn’t read either of those, but something clearly happened to some “lesser” members of the Batman mythos, as the series starts with Kate Kane/Batwoman, Luke Fox/Batwing, and Lucius Fox at something of a crossroads. They seem to be “on the outs” with Batman, and trying to find their way forward. Both Kate and Luke see the bat and a shadow from which they need to emerge, but they have different approaches. Luke has decided that all of the unknown aspects of the DC Universe need to be investigated and catalogued. Funded by his father, Lucius, Luke has put together an organization tasked with doing just that, and he was inviting Kate to join. Meanwhile, Kate’s somewhat reckless, as she’s in the middle of a foreign town, in broad daylight, in costume, but maskless, fighting insurgents. She has a death wish, for some reason, and Luke thinks this will give her a renewed purpose (Even though the fact that she’s always in costume seems to imply she’s not really willing to give up hero-ing for universal archaeology). The third member of their team is an old woman, named Drummer, who can “feel the rhythm of the universe”. Basically, the universe “talks” to her.
Written by Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, they’re doing their best impression of Grant Morrison/Warren Ellis storytelling, but they just don’t have the chops. The story gets VERY meta, and becomes something of an exploration of DC’s constant crises and reboots. It’s a story with a message, but not one that I feel DC fans want to receive. It was so unpopular that the planned 12-issue series ended one issue early. Not knowing what had happened to these characters prior really kept me from being onboard for their journey. And while it was a book with a lot of interesting ideas, none of them are satisfyingly explored, nor do I feel that cast members were the right choice for this mission. In the end, I think the characters even realize this, but there aren’t really any major repercussions. I mean, there are, but there aren’t. COMICS! Oh, and the book is totally a Planetary revival. Surprise!
Things You Might Have Missed This Week
- Over the weekend, comics & science fiction lost writer Peter David, while reality watchers lost Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame. This really felt like one of those “They take one of ours? We take one of theirs” scenarios…
- Folks who’ve wanted to try the viral “Dubai Chocolate”, without paying an arm and a leg, will be able to buy a Trader Joe’s version this week. There are some differences, however, as Trader Joes omits an ingredient or two, and they use dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate.
- The main cast were announced for the Harry Potter Max series, and fans can’t decide whether they’re angriest about JK Rowling’s “heel turn” or that there’s a racially ambiguous Hermione.
- Billie Eilish SWEPT the American Music Awards, winning seven awards, including Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Favorite Touring Artist, Favorite Female Pop Artist, Favorite Pop Album, and Favorite Pop Song. Now, I don’t know how these are decided, but I call bullshit on at least the Touring award, given that Taylor’s Eras Tour broke pretty much every tour record on the books.
- Grant Morrison will make his return to DC Comics with Batman/Deadpool, marking the first DC/Marvel intercompany crossover in quite some time. He’ll be joined by superstar Dan Mora on art. Meanwhile, Marvel will also be releasing Deadpool/Batman, with *checks notes* Zeb Wells and Greg Capullo.
- Always looking out for “the little guy”, that guy in the White House has decided to pardon Todd and Julie Chrisley, of USA Network’s Chrisley Knows Best. So, he knew best, but not enough to avoid going down for tax fraud? Sounds suspect…
- This week marked the 25th anniversary of CBS reality pillar Survivor. This show launched with a lot of promise, but the wind was knocked out of its sails once we learned they couldn’t really be allowed to die on that island.
- Great news for Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny this week, as Welcome to Wrexham was not only renewed for season 5, but a spinoff, called Necaxa, was ordered, where the two will partner with Eva Longoria to overhaul a Mexican soccer team.
So, this is one of those weeks where I really benefitted by writing this later in the day. You see, it was announced this morning that Taylor Swift had regained ownership of her first six albums. If you didn’t know the whole story, Scooter Braun, who owned her original record label Big Machine, had asserted ownership of her master recordings, leading Taylor to re-record four of those albums with the “(Taylor’s Version)” label. Fans expected the next release to be a re-release of her Reputation album, in the form of Reputation (Taylor’s Version). As the father of a Swiftie, I know fans have expected an announcement ever since the Eras Tour ended. Based on some internet sleuths, they expected her to announce it at the American Music Awards this week, but it turned out she didn’t even attend the ceremony. Today’s news, however, puts a crimp in all that.
Posted to her official website, Taylor wrote that she now owns all of her music, videos, etc, as she purchased them from the catalog’s most recent owner, private equity firm Shamrock Capital. She addresses that she understands her fans have been waiting for Reputation (Taylor’s Version), as well as her self-titled debut, but she revealed that she hasn’t even finished recording for Reputation. She said that they will be released when the time is right, so that they can shine on their own. But why would she release them?
I can’t figure out if this is a fortuitous moment, or if her fandom have been the victims of the greatest swindle in the history of pop music. Having grown up with pro wrestling, and giving the current state of politics is akin to your standard pay-per-view, I can’t help but think there’s an angle here. I mean, Braun was pretty much painted as a villain the past decade or so, as he “wouldn’t release Taylor’s masters”. So, she embarks on this “Fuck You” tour of re-recording her catalog, to sell to those same fans, so that she could “win” against Evil Braun. And it worked. That whole thing, combined with the Kanye West drama, really helped to make Taylor come off like an undeserving victim, who “nevertheless persevered”. But now she has the rights back to those old albums. So, she could stop the Taylor’s Version project, but that would leave fans with an incomplete set. Or, she could finish the project, but it doesn’t really mean as much when you realize she doesn’t have to, plus – from a financial perspective – she’d be “double dipping”. The thing with the rights being sold was that she wasn’t receiving her fair share of the royalties, as Braun – and any subsequent owners of the catalog – were reaping those benefits. Seeing as that’s no longer the case, I feel like she should release “RepTV” and anything else from that era, FOR FREE, if she releases them at all. But she won’t, because she’s not a dummy. None of this could have been planned, or executed as effectively, by a dummy.
So, I tip my hat to you, Taylor. Best case scenario, you got your songs back. The music you poured your heart and soul into. Worst case scenario was this was all an elaborate scam that would even give P.T. Barnum pause. Either way, it’s a momentous occasion, so Taylor Swift had the West Week Ever.
