#stop casting chris pratt in everything we don't like him

[bearpillowmonster]

Transformers One Trailer

That new trailer and I have some thoughts? Surprisingly.

I don't normally watch trailers anymore and I've said why before but it basically boils down to they spoil too much too much of the time and what's the point if I'm sold anyway. Now Transformers One seems like a no-brainer, gives those fans a prequel origin sort of thing as well as an introduction for the newbies who only know the Bay and Rise and Bumblebee movies in animation no less so completely different. Then I saw the images of the designs and oh man0

It looks generic. Like I never watched Transformers Prime, it has its fans but I just do not like that art style and this started making me think of that, like it wasn't finished. I much would've preferred a 2D movie but 3D can be done, look at the War for Cybertron trilogy (which I've already talked about)

Nice and stylized, distinguished, scuffed metal, I wanna lick them. Anyways, that's a show though, it'd look good as a movie and heck, T-One looks good as a show but I don't know, is it just me? I also didn't finish the trilogy because the first one was good and I thought it'd only get better but reviews for the second one came out and they were bogus so I dropped it.

But then I watched the trailer-

And it looks better! Notice anything? They're all close up shots! And you mean to tell me this is the same movie>

Ugh. Visuals out of the way, cast. Why? We don't need all these celebrity voices and I'm someone who supports Peter Cullen just being Optimus all the time but I also understand that he's getting older just like Charles Martinet did with Mario leaving the character in a specific position but you didn't get Chris Pratt?? No I'm just kidding, we got Chris Hemsworth, and really, I can't even tell that it's him, I saw his name attached and I was like "Here we go again" and there are a few times where he had traces of that Cullen voice pattern and it's like an adolescent Optimus settling into his voice- wait am I complementing? Stop that.

Josh Cooley is directing and he's got a pretty decent track record with Pixar, we even see Keegan Michael Key again for whatever reason- oh, it's goofy, it's made for children

"But he says bad ass!" mehmehmehmehmeh, so do the other movies twit, somehow, someway, they get away with anything. He's gotta go and announce everything that's happening "I have knives?!" "I have machine guns in my butt?!" Stupid even for a kid, especially menaging Megatron, what'd you do to my angry baby? He's just reading the script, I know, which also isn't great. So, instead of just being a race of transformers, they're a race of robots that gain the ability to transform to save Cybertron. There's the generic nature again! I also don't see it in the trailer but with the toys, they have this weird thing where they use energy to summon their weapons? Bumblebee is fine with the "KNIVES" but

"I put my hand on a ba-all to see if I still bleeeeddd and nothing hurts anymore, I feel kinda freeeeee" What is that? Just give him an axe, he doesn't have to summon it and then attach it to a ball. But wait- the design is different here, what's going on? These toys don't match up with the movie. Like, look at Bumblebee before and after he transforms, he doesn't look like the toy does (I've used enough pictures, do some leg work) and Megatron...just looks like Megatron and I know these are movie toys, just look at Alpha Trion, so I don't know how much of it is an accurate conversion between the two and I normally wouldn't care but it's that ball that drives me bonkers.

BUT I will say that I support Scarjo playing- who is she playing? Because that's not Arcee. Elita One? Cool name, at least. Oh, she's an OG, we're good then. Lawrence is also a good one. Anyways, disappointed, we'll see.

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

I really, really wish everyone on the right would stop pretending certain people are awesome and on our side and everything they've ever done has been good actually just because they do one or two things that are pretty cool now.

This is mostly about Tulsi Gabbard, who despite being pro-government healthcare, pro-DACA, pro-Green New Deal, and pro-gun control, among other positions we wouldn't accept from people who have actually run as Republicans, is being turned into some kind of populist right wing hero just because she calls out the extreme left sometimes and left the Democrat party.

But it's also about Mel Gibson, who is apparently part of a group that stops human trafficking (which is good, if true), which means some people are now trying to pretend he's been using his movies and his public statements to expose truths and fight for freedoms forever, when mostly he's just been going on drunken anti-semitic rants.

It also applies to a lesser degree to people like James Gunn, who has about 30 tweets joking about being a pedophile but because he calls out cancel culture after being fired for five minutes because of those tweets he's suddenly based. Or Chris Pratt*, who has never publicly spoken about his political beliefs on anything, but because he's publicly religious and didn't want to film a campaign ad for Biden, we assume he's a secret right wing Hollywood guy and it's "safe" to watch his movies.

I'm not saying we shouldn't admire or respect someone for doing a good deed or supporting a righteous cause. Far from it. One of my other problems with the right is, paradoxically, how they'll sometimes cast someone who is right 99% of the time away like they're stale bathwater because they did something we don't agree with once. That kind of attitude doesn't win anyone over to our side. But that's also my point. We're way more willing to put horribly imperfect leftists (or potential leftists) on a pedestal just because they're on "our side" once or twice, while we demand ideological perfection from anyone we already think is with us at all times. Keep perspective. I know Trump worked out really well for us, but populism and populist euphoria, while at least somewhat necessary to politics these days, is a dangerous thing to indulge in too much. It's how you end up with cults of personality around people who end up destroying movements.

*So Chris Pratt doesn't really fit into the theme of this post, but I wanted to put him here anyway because it startled me how quickly people went from "He's just another Marvelshit actor" to "OMG he's just like us!" It's disturbing because, A, we don't know what his beliefs are and it's weird to assign him ours just because we like one thing he was public about, and B, because it shouldn't matter what his beliefs are. We rightfully disdain Hollywood and the culture it breeds and the people who thrive in that culture, but the moment a Hollywood lifer says something that even remotely sounds like they might not be left of Stalin we freak out and start acting like twitter stans? Come on, guys. Don't worship celebrity. And don't be so quick to assign virtue to people who have never publicly shown it. Someone at Chris Pratt's level, if he is truly "on our side", should be using their money and influence to do something about it besides going to church and mentioning God every so often. If someone from Hollywood shows up publicly at the March For Life, or publicly donates to a reputable pro-2A advocacy group, or does something like pay the legal bills of the Jan 6 political prisoners, that's who I'll respect and praise. But just not publicly being a raging leftist shouldn't be enough to get us creaming in our pants.

[litcityblues]

'The Super Mario Bros. Movie' --A Review

I must have seen the 1993 movie, Super Mario Bros. Many moons ago, when video rental places were a thing, there was a fantastic place in town called Hagens. (I'm sure every town had one of these at some point in the video rental era-- but if you recognize the name, then as the kids say, IYKYK) and Hagens was a wonderful place that had every possible movie you could want to watch. It also had those old VHS tapes of Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation which were placed at a convenient angle to their infamous 'swing doors' that lead to the Adult Section.

Ah, youth.

But anyway, I'm convinced that at some point in the distant past, I saw the 1993 movie starring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, and amazingly enough, the awesome Fiona Shaw.

That was then, this is now.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie draws some immediate differences between the 1993 film and this one. For a start, it's animated, which I think fits a lot better. I don't know if a Live-Action remake would ever be in the cards and one would hope that they'd be less hampered by technology now with the rise of CGI, etc., but for the purposes of this movie, animated works.

What I loved about the animation was how bright the colors were. Vivid and sharp, it jumped out at you and really brought the various worlds of the video game to life in a really effective, compelling way. The story is about what you expect: Italian-American brothers Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) are trying to get their newly opened plumbing business off the ground in Brooklyn. After a disastrous first day, they rush to the scene of a major water leak in Brooklyn and, when they go underground to fix it, they get sucked into a warp pipe and separated.

Mario lands in the Mushroom Kingdom where he meets Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) who takes him to the ruler of the Kingdom, Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) while Luigi lands in the Dark Lands ruled by the evil Koopa King Bowser (Jack Black) and his wizard Kamek (Kevin Michael Richardson.) Bowser is on a quest to conquer the world and marry Princess Peach and Peach isn't so warm to the idea so when they receive word that Bowser's army is on the movie, they head for the Jungle World to see if they can enlist the Kongs as allies. King Cranky Kong (Fred Armisen) agrees but only if Mario can defeat his son, Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen). Mario does and the two allies race to defend the Mushroom Kingdom only to fall victim to an ambush by Bowser's forces on Rainbow Road.

Mario and Donkey Kong survive and hurry to stop Bowser and Peach's wedding and a final confrontation ensues although everyone gets sucked back into Brooklyn, the good guys win the day and the respect and approval of both the denizens of the Mushroom Kingdom and Brooklyn and the two brothers move their plumbing business there and prepare to start their work day.

Overall: I think it's probably unreasonable to expect a lot of the plot here. It is what the video game is. Overcome various challenges, rescue the Princess, etc. This isn't Game of Thrones. You're not going to see a Red Wedding or Luigi get killed randomly or something. But as a story, it works. 'Save the Princess' is probably a trope as old as time, but you don't get to be one of the biggest video games ever if you don't know how to do that well, and even in animated movie form, The Super Mario Bros. Movie shows that they can still work that magic and work it quite well.

The fun stuff for adult viewers- even those, like me, who have a deep knowledge of Mario Kart and were frankly crap at the original games when they came out for SNES, etc- are the nods to the games. The Rainbow Road sequence is excellent. Mario uses a catsuit to defeat Donkey Kong. We see a Tanooki tail show up. I'm not 100% sure, but I feel fairly confident in saying that just about everything from the video games you would want to see shows up in the movie in one form or another.

The cast is excellent. Jack Black just about steals the show as Bowser- I mean, talk about perfect casting there. And while some people did grumble a little about Chris Pratt being cast as Mario and not being remotely Italian-American, Wikipedia tells me that Charlie Day, who voices Luigi does have both Irish and Italian ancestry, so at least one of the brothers is carrying the Il Tricolore.

This is a good movie. Solid, great animation, good cast- it's a kid's movie that works on multiple levels, so if you're an adult and have even the vaguest of knowledge about video games, you should find this tolerably enjoyable. (The more knowledge you have about the games, the more entertaining this will probably be for you though.)

My Grade: *** out of ****

[bridoesotherjunk]

me watching more and more casual fans getting vocal about how sick they are of every animated movie having the same 8 celebrity voices