slikmar

From the late great Terry Pratchett
 
Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad. (LL)

"It Bit Me"
"What did you expect it to do?"
"I thought Fairies were nice"
"Shows what you know"

Don't look now, but it appears that the Raiders may have done something not entirely boneheaded.
 
Raiders hiring Antonio Pierce as full-time head coach; went 5-4 after replacing Josh McDaniels
 
Good for them. The dude has definitely earned it.

Lots of intense matches at the Australian Open last night. A lot were were tie breaks, but this one was record breaking.

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/eagles-jason-kelce-retiring-stellar-nfl-career-reports

And Flacco gets steamrolled again.  He doesn't deserve that, for sure.  Yeah...other than the game-breaker then back-breaker pick 6's...Texans defense holds Browns to less than 3 yards per rush.  Throw in 4 sacks of Flacco, and the picks were practically inevitable.
 
Back to basketball.  HECK NO, I'm not buying even a single month of Peacock.  NBC's seeing if they can get us to buy it.  The days of mostly-free football are likely numbered, but I'm not going to help kill them.

The Court Jester: This one's a favorite of mine, and I rewatched it tonight because I heard about the death of actress Glynis Johns yesterday, at the age of 100.  (Vudu)
 
 
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/04/entertainment/glynis-johns-dead/index.html

Somewhat obscure reference involved....

Just saw Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and can't understand the negative press. Was it Oscar quality acting and writing? No. Did it have good action, a cohesive plot and characters with understandable motivations? Yes, to all three.
 
The worst thing I can say about this movie is that it redoes the plotline of the first with Orm in Mera's role and sibling rivalry instead of romantic tension. But it does so many good things to counteract that. It only teases a long fight scene against run of the mill thugs, The things they do fight are credible threats either in numbers or power, the humor is kept in check and doesn't seem forced, and the evil masterplan is over the top only in its timescale.
 
Best of all, the characters remain consistent in personality and in powers. Black Manta is given a powerup through Faustian bargain, but remains true to his vendetta against Arthur without slipping into melodramatic villainy. Orm has plenty of reasons to hate Arthur from his perspective but does still act for Atlantis" benefit as he sees it and comes to realize that he doesn't really know Arthur. Arthur realizes that he's a flawed king, but he keeps on plugging away as best he can. The rest of the cast is used fairly well and not overly distracting in any way.
 
Is it the best superhero movie out there? No, but it's a very solid entry in the genre an if DC had more like it, they wouldn't be in such a state. It's easily as good as any GotG movie and very similar with a more serious tone. Solid 7.5 out of 10 from me.

Our family and my brother's family went to see Wonka a couple of days ago. Fantastic movie. Timothée Chalamet was a perfect mix of ernest, sympathetic, eccentric, and just a little bit over the top. The bit parts from Hugh Grant and Rowan Atkinson were fantastic as well.

It being the last weekend of the year I dipped in to cable for the inevitable Twilight Zone marathon.  Managed to last one whole episode before the six commercial breaks in a half hour sent me back my advertising-free podcast roster.  For someone who grew up in the pre-cable days I've become extremely intolerant of ads as I've grown older, which you would think would be more of a young folks thing.

Possibly the best cosplay of the year--

"I want $10 million a year for the rest of my life."
 
"Let me get this straight. You think that your client, one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world is secretly a vigilante who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands, and your plan is to blackmail this person? Good luck." 

I think that's pretty true about almost all of DC (and much of Marvel too at this point).   Consider just Wonder Woman who keeps being rebooted and remade and reimagined etc.  In my mind Perez did the best with her in the 80s but it wasn't that long after he left the title they rebooted her again.  Its the curse of fans wanting continuity while wanting things to be fresh and liking big events.

Heresy!  Next you'll suggest DC can't have its cake and eat it too.   

I refer too my comment on the biggest problems with DC's "reboots". Not just trying to restart but trying to keep the history of each character too. Seriously, if they would either do the legacy thing OR clean slate reboot, would be so much better.
Just saw Aquaman, I liked it and thought as good as first. Loved the homage to Mos Eisley and Jabba. Not a fan of the casting of Shin, or at least the portrayal.

If they'd stopped at the one major reboot that changed him from what he'd been since 1945 (ie a failed prototype who let his hubris lead him to abuse his powers, acting as a dark mirror of Captain Marvel) I could see the point.  But they didn't.  Once they started seriously tampering with him they never stopped, and at this point he's been through so many creative teams and ill-considered revamps that he no longer has a reason to exist and his stories are so incoherent and meandering they aren't worth reading.  He's been an antihero, then a villain, then supposedly seeking redemption without any of it lasting so many times now it's laughable.  Too many cooks have pissed in the Black Adam stew to salvage the character, at least not without a long cooldown time and probably yet another reboot that sticks this time.
 
Seriously, just look at this mess, and keep in mind that is just an abbreviated synopsis on wiki.

As far as making money goes, I think that we can't underestimate the "It's going to be on my streaming in 6 weeks" crowd. I know quite a few people who have this attitude.

I'd watch that
 

Saw Wonka today.
 
I enjoyed it. Was the Gene Wilder Wonka, younger, meets Annie and was fun and whimsical in front of a Londonish type of town. For those who liked Wilder's version, it is recommended, if you preferred Depp's, probably not for you.