Spider-Man: No Way Home Closes One Door and Opens Several Others

One Spider-Man Isn’t Enough to Pull Off this Feat

On the road to life, I watched a child do childish things but somewhere along the way, the child turned into a man and started doing manly things. If you had to sum up in one sentence what Spider-Man: No Way Home is about, this, perhaps, is just one. Spider-Man: No Way Home is more than just some superhero’s tale of fighting supervillains. It is a journey of one’s self who is thrown headfirst into adulthood and without a parachute. I had to watch this film twice to get the nuances in the telling and it was fruitful as it was ambitious.

Spider-Man: No Way Home picks up right away from Spider-Man: Far From Home. Spider-Man’s secret identity has been revealed to be Peter Parker Tom Holland) by Mysterio. But wasn’t that Peter’s fault for being careless when he willingly revealed it to Mysterio after being prompted to remove his mask from the Krull Nick Fury? Surely he could have said no but throughout Far From Home, Peter’s gullibility and naivete’ lead him to where we are now. Unfortunately, that gullibility and naivete’ will come at a cost for Peter in more ways than one.

The first 40 minutes of the film would be best to call it the childish side of Peter. He, along with Ned (Jacob Batalon) and MJ (Zendaya) is hauled in by the authorities and questioned about events leading up to the Mysterio maelstrom. We really don’t get to see the full consequences and ramifications of their involvement that would lend itself to taking desperate measures. But childish Peter hasn’t developed full cognitive frontal lobe brain connections and sought out other measures. Instead, he goes to Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to institute a quick fix. I guess it’s nice to have a sorcerer in your hip pocket to fulfill your Make-A-Wish problems go away.

But Peter, in a selfish act, screws up the spell by talking and interrupting the casting of the spell and by not thinking through this spell and what it truly means by doing so. The spell goes horribly wrong but Peter dismisses it and goes about his day as if nothing is wrong. He takes Dr. Strange’s advice and goes to speak to the M.I.T. chairperson about getting his friends into M.I.T. and it works. But the lesson is too late for him to absorb as Doc Octopus (Alred Molina) materializes from the newly minted Multiverse. He is just one of several Spider villains that come to his world and create havoc.

But as each one of these supervillains appears, they are quickly rounded up and placed in a holding cell by Dr. Strange. But the trio still finds time to mock Doc Ock by making fun of his given name, Otto Octavius. For a person of Doc Ock’s standing and reputation, having children mock his name is childish and more so humiliating. Dr. Srange’s goal is to return the other-worlders back to their timeline and have their fate fulfilled which would mean their eventual demise. Peter, the man-child, disagrees with Dr. Strange and verbally protest. Dr. Strange insists that this is the only choice and starts manipulating the spell box with incantations. Peter, in Spider-Man mode, fights Dr. Strange for the spell box and prevails. You would then ask yourself, why does Peter’s position supersede Dr. Strange’s position, a person who has more life and world experience than your friendly costumed character? This is never broached. Instead, we see Peter pigheadedly forge ahead with his wishes after trapping Strange over grand Canyon. Has he not learned anything from his time with Tony Stark?

While Peter is attempting to rectify Octavius’s issues, Norman Osborne (Willem DaFoe) aka Green Goblin reverts to his alter-ego persona and goes on a destructive bent. It is at this junction that the road Spider-Man has been on takes a dark turn. In their attempt to escape the Green goblin’s rampage, Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) is mortally wounded. Up to this point, Peter’s life has been filled with frivolous and superficial wants and needs. Now for the first time in his life, he will experience the most personal of losses, a loss under the umbrella of violence, a loss that he perhaps had orchestrated but not with intent.

As Peter goes through the mourning phase for Aunt May, he gets an assist from two other Peter Parkers thanks to Ned after putting on Strange’s dual-ring that Peter managed to wrest from him at the Grand Canyon. Now there are three Peter Parkers in this universe. Peter Parker 2 (Toby McGuire) and Peter Parker 3 (Andrew Garfield) reintroduce themselves with the right touch of revisiting the characters but with a bit more nuance. Unlike Peter Parker 1 (Holland), you can feel the other’s life experiences especially with Peter Parker 2. Peter Parker 2 is a more traveled Spider-Man who has gone through a lot. His relationship with Mary Jane has had its ebb and flow as they have managed to stay together. Peter Parker 3 is a more reserved Spider-Man. Even though he has had some wins, he has dealt with the losses on a more personal level as he keeps his feelings at arm's length. We get to see how much his feelings are in reserve after he saves MJ from falling. The pain from losing Gwen still haunts him as it’s telegraphed all over his face when he asks MJ if she was okay? That was brilliant.

As each supervillain is reverted back to normal, Dr. Strange has returned trying to contain an ever-growing Multiverse, Peter 1 has finally come to the conclusion of what Strange had intended to do originally, have everyone forget who Peter Parker was. It’s a decision that will have major consequences on his life and he makes it. Gone are his high school days. Gone are his friendships. Gone are the Avengers collaborations. Gone are the memories shared with others. Gone are the loves in his life.

The book of Peter Parker is closed. There is a new book now, Chapter 1, a young man enters his new apartment to begin his new life while studying for his GED. He’s not sure of his job prospect but he remains hopeful that tomorrow with brings a new opportunity.

Ratings: 5 out of 5 stars

 

Ghostbusters: Afterlife Brings Us Back to the Movie Going Experience

Sometimes Fan Service is A Good Thing

Once upon a time, long long ago, in a place far far away, there was this moment when a movie came out, there was this feeling of anticipation, of desire, of wanting to see a movie up there on the big screen in surround sound in all of its glory. You would count down the days for that Friday to come to see the big premiere release of that film. But then, something changed. Politics changed, technology changed, a pandemic changed, people's interests changed, and movies changed for the worst. Movies changed as they began to bend to some faddish societal experimental reconfiguration. The movie-going public was not amused and rejected it in great numbers. What was once guaranteed box-office gold was met with box-office derision and ambivalence. Would this become our movie-going future? You would have placed your bet and said yes. But a funny thing happened on the way to the CinemaScope. There was this movie called Ghostbusters: Afterlife and it restored our faith in the movie-going revival.

First, I will begin by saying that there are two camps of audiences who are going to see this film. The first camp would be the original die-hard Ghostbusters fandom and the second camp would be the fan-going movie public, your average Joe’s and Jane’s. Perhaps there is a third camp and these are mainly those who found the 2016 version as a stand-out cinematic tour-de-force. I say this because judging by some early reviews by critics on rotten tomatoes, They seem to have a hard-on against Ghostbuster: Afterlife while bestowing the virtues of the 2016 version. They would be wrong, however. It’s more of a forgiveness letter to the fans for the 2016 version while thanking them for sticking around long enough for this film to be seen. As we cleanse our memory palette of the 2016 version, we welcome Ghostbusters: Afterlife. So, what does it offers?

Dor starters, we have new characters in the play; Mckenna Grace as Phoebe, Carrie Coon as Callie, Paul Rudd as Grooberson, Finn Wolfhard as Trevor, Celeste O’Connor as Lucky, and Logan Kim as Podcast. These new characters are served up well in this iteration. They are likable and they do a good job of not alienating the core fan base. The director, Jason Reitman, organically places the focus of the film on Phoebe without having to bludgeon the audience over the head with some sort of agenda. In fact, all of the females in this film come with their own set of dynamics that isn’t heavy-handed. They define who they are without denigrating or putting down any men. This has become a rarity in films these days Although, not having or giving any mention to who Trevor and Phoebe’s father is is an issue. The absentee father is an overused Hollywood trope that’s become problematic and absurd. With that being said, the film overall serves up the right notes as Jason Reitman orchestrates this little opus of a film.

On a separate note though, the film leaves out what the trailer had offered up. The scene where Phoebe is pelted with food from a group of girls is strategically missing. I suspect this was cut out because it may have been perceived as a bunch of mean girls bullying a girl with certain social limitations. The other footage of note is where Paul Rudd’s character asks Phoebe what her name was is also excised from the film. Maybe they wanted to keep the mystery of who Phoebe is from him a little longer?

This film really does invoke the movie-going experience and you definitely feel it.

The film is about your long-lost friend that you haven’t seen in a while. The engine of this film is McKenna Grace. She is the daughter to Callie, the sister to Trevor, and the granddaughter to Egon Spengler. She does a lot of the heavy lifting in carrying the movie. She does it without little effort but she has done it before as the wunderkind in the 2017 film, Gifted, alongside Chris Evans. In that film, she played a 7-year-old.

The rest of the cast does an amiable job of supporting her in the effort, especially Podcast. With him pairing up with Phoebe, you can visualize a sequel with both of them reprising their roles. In fact, he compliments her in this newfound partnership. Once again, Jason makes their introduction organically. Podcast recognizes something in her that doesn’t scare him off. He embraces the quirks.

I did want a little more of Paul Rudd’s character though. While the Walmart scenes were okay, he left a lot of meat on the bone character development-wise. I can say the same for Annie Potts’ Janine. Seems as if they didn’t give her enough to do or say and there were so many unanswered questions about what her character had been up to since the original. What happened between her and Egon, why wasn’t she the mother of Callie, why did she follow Egon to some Podunk town? Who is Callie’s mother? Why didn’t Janine give any more details about Egon? Are we to assume that whatever relationship they had, was rekindled since she was conveniently there at his house in the middle of nowhere?

I won’t deduct anything away from this but perhaps a follow-up is in order should there be a sequel. Another point should also be addressed, how did Phoebe know about which switch turns on the proton pack? How did Podcast figure out the controls of the remote ghost capture car? How did she get back up to the top after sliding down a pole to Egon’s secret lab? Still, no point deductions yet.

The action kicks in as we go on this ride of reinvigorating the Ghostbuster franchise. We get to see the symbols from the original Ghostbuster outing, Gozer, played by an unrecognizable Olivia Wilde, the demon minion dogs, zombies, and streaks of lights darting in and out around the town. I will give Jason Reitman a bit of some extra credit by turning old effects and props around into some refreshingly video-enhanced creations. I would categorize it as taking old stale bread and making it warm and fresh again.

It was also good to see Ecto 1 as well. Although I will take some points away with this observation. When Trevor was driving it, wasn’t it odd that the motor to that old vehicle ran as quiet as a mouse? The muffler has no signs of oxidation from being stored in an open-air barn. There was no smoke coming from the exhaust. Why didn’t the car need a ring job from being dried out over the years? Since they didn’t have any money to speak of, how and where did he get the parts? Even the gas in the tank was old, surely he had to remove the tank and get that fix.

 When the car flew up in the air, yeah, that was a big no-no for a 15-year-old driving it with no experience handling a vehicle of that size. A car would have t be moving pretty fast to fly that far in the air and a 15-year-old with no experience sends the wrong message. Yeah, some major point deductions.

When they are battling the demon though, the film rights itself when the surviving Ghostbusters finally make their appearance. It was no surprise but it was great to see them. Venkman seemed to have aged the hardest. What Jason does here gives us that moment that Star Wars: The Force Awakens failed to do, give us our heroes in one scene. Jason hits us in the fells. He brings it home with the spectral image of a deceased Egon assisting his granddaughter in holding the proton gun trying to eviscerate Gozer. Venkman and company turn to their right to see Egon battling alongside them. The effect was really good. It was good to see all of them together and at the same time bittersweet to witness.

The battle ends, Egon turns to his former teammates as they say the things that they should have said when he was alive. As you watched this though, you couldn’t help but wonder if this was Bill Murray speaking from the heart to Harold Ramis? Was he really being heartfelt since it was him who held up the making of another Ghostbuster film? Egon also gets some closure with Callie. Earlier she had found a wall of photographs of her growing up that were in Egon’s lab. When Egon finally let himself go, you had to feel like he was also saying goodbye to the fans as well. This was a love letter for all of those fans who still believed in Ghostbuster the original. The fans that believed in Spengler, Venkman, Stan, and Zeddemore, the Ghostbusters.

Three and a half out of five stars.

 

Dave Chappelle, Larry Elder, Winsome Sears, and Kyle Rittenhouse Are All White Supremacists

So Says Joy Reid, Ibrim X. Kendi, Michael Eric Dyson, and The Liberal Wing of the B.E.M.

It’s been a strange five years in America following the election of Donald J. Trump as president of these United States. A lot of things have unfolded in the realm of political discourse. Topics like gender identity, race identity, political identity, immigration, the economy, just to name a few, have been swirling around us purely unabated. Illegal immigrants are pouring into our southern border and the Biden Administration is doing absolutely nothing to curtail the influx. We are back to being dependent on foreign oil when only a year ago we weren’t. Of these lists of discussion points, one subject seems to have reared its head to garner attention in a way that’s sometimes is ridiculous, sometimes perturbing, and sometimes outright outrageous.

Politically, we are a divided nation. The left has never accepted the fact that Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in such a resounding defeat. It’s not just that he won, he won in such a way that many of the left couldn’t fathom the loss. Their belief system was destroyed and they retaliated indiscriminately with a “take no prisoners” approach if you weren’t politically aligned with them. As the four years lowly dissolved away, we saw how the lies were spread, how news headlines were manipulated and implied a false counterpoint, and how the mainstream media obfuscated the truth in so many ways that Walter Cronkite is spinning like a top in his grave.

Such is the case of some newsworthy individuals that go by the name of Dave Chappelle, Larry Elder, Winsome Sears, and Kyle Rittenhouse. All of these individuals have been accused of either being white supremacists or being a puppet for white supremacists. With the exception of Mr. Rittenhouse, three of them are American blacks. What did all of them do wrong? Well, they were on the wrong side of the Black Elitists Media, The BEM. Black elitists have been around for a very long time. It started around the Reconstruction Era when blacks were freed from slavery and those who gained significance financially, economically, and sociably, defined themselves through what would become a class system. During that time, American blacks were loyal to the Republican party as that was the house of Abraham Lincoln, the man who freed them. Those freedmen, men like Booker T. Washington, gained prominence alongside their white contemporaries. Those who were fortunate enough to convert their situation into productive gain did so. If they could take a few souls with them, that was fine but not all got an invitation to the party. It, for the most part, became nothing more of who had what and had not. Even back then, the machine of capitalism and commerce was changing into something quite different. While race was still a factor, the class system became this evolutionary creature no one saw coming. In today’s climate, it isn’t about race, it’s about which class that you’re in.

Let’s take a look at Dave Chappelle. Mr. Chappelle is a noted comedian. At times, he’s been labeled “controversial”. His humor is biting, brutal, cutting, and honest. He’s an observational comedian. I know what I speak because I used to be the head comedy writer for four years on a top market radio show. I used to write for seven voice personalities. Mr. Chappelle’s observational humor garnered him some Netflix presentations and they have been very successful. It was his last outing though that wrinkled the brows of many in the alphabet community. They, unsurprisingly, were not amused by Mr. Chappelle’s humorous observations. They were so much not amused that a small protest was formed outside of Netflix’s corporate offices. The critics slammed Mr. Chappelle’s performance and some reporters likened Mr. Chappelle as being the mouthpiece for white supremacy. Hmm, imagine that. A black comedian who has won countless awards, including Emmys, NAACP image awards, Grammys, and a Mark Twain Prize for American humor, is the voice of white supremacists.

Mr. Chappelle isn’t alone in his foray into controversy, in fact, he’s in good company. Richard Pryor had his run-in with the gay community and George Carlin had his fair share of controversy as well. But we live in a different era, an era that has social media. Social media is a bane to our existence. It is as poisonous as it is fruitful. We are living with it but we are not mastering it. It is mastering us. Mr. Chappelle is trying to tame it but I see little hope in trying to reign in this bucking stallion.

Larry Elder, on the other hand, tossed his name into the California recall election in hopes of becoming the next governor of the state. Because of name recognition, he bolted to the top of the list and became a viable candidate. But a funny thing happened on the way to the campaign. He was assaulted and pelted with an egg-throwing, gorilla-masked white lady who swore at him and struck out violently to members of his entourage. Normally, especially in California, you would think that there would be a lot of press coverage over this incident. In fact, there was very little mainstream media coverage and there was no police investigation over the incident as well. Surely this was a hate crime. The mainstream press didn’t see it this way. The mainstream press didn’t cover it that way. The mainstream press treated it like ice cream baking in the hot sun, watching it slowly melt away. The only significant press Mr. Elder received and was carried nationally was that of a reporter tantamount in describing Mr. Elder as the black face to white supremacy. Mr. Elder ran as a Republican.

While Mr. Elder talked about the issues facing California like homelessness, the teaching of critical race theory in elementary schools, and people fleeing the state in record numbers because of the current government’s policies, his Democratic opponent, Gavin Newsom, instead brought Donald Trump into the campaign. By attempting to link Trump with Elder, Newsom had reverted to practicing fear-mongering. Coupled by the fact that Newsom received a big monetary boost from some noteworthy corporations in the final push, Mr. Elder lost his campaign.

Winsome Sears, however, did win her race for Lt. Governor for the state of Virginia. She ran as a Republican in a Democratic state as well as Republican governor-elect Glenn Youngkin. Her win was overshadowed by Youngkin’s victory over his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe. Youngkin’s victory and lead-up became fodder as McAuliffe made a few political mistakes in the final close of the election. While the mainstream media licked its wounds over the Youngkin win, they chose to take his win in a different manner by slandering the voters of Virginia as an overture to white supremacy. Leading in that assessment was MSNBC’s, Joy Reid. Never mind that many of the voters were people of color, they too were aligned with white supremacy. They refused to acknowledge

Winsome Sear’s win was a historic moment for her as she became the first woman of color to win the election. Instead, Joy Reid, academia’s Micheal Eric Dyson, and a few other MSNBC talking head pundits labeled Mrs. Sears as a talking vessel for white supremacy and she did not represent the black ideology. Well, who the ph.uck made Joy Reid the arbiter of who is black? Who the ph.uck died and made Michael Eric Dyson the overlord of black people in politics? Other news outlets, with black people on their payroll leading in the talking points, were parlaying the same rhetoric led by the left-leaning CNN.

But how do they get away with saying some of the most racist of things?

MSNBC is owned by Comcast Communication. Surely if a white person would have said the things that Joy Reid had said about Winsome Sears, they would have been given their walking papers. Just ask Megyn Kelly. She got into a discussion with Jenna Bush Hager about black face and presumed that wearing black face was her way of honoring that person. Naive as that was, she had to walk the plank and apologize for her comments. But that wasn’t enough, the powers that be chose to remove her from her show and the network. So, why do Joy Reid and all the other faces of color who degenerated Winsome Sears get a pass? Just because she is black doesn’t mean she is allowed to say racist things. If you are assuming that if a black person calls another black person the N-word, then that is socially acceptable. In fact, it is not. If that black person does not use that language and doesn’t like being referred to or being identified to that word, it is offensive. That person has every right to sue you for defamation no matter what your melanin is.

Of course, none of this is new. If you are a black Republican, your viewpoints are not in lockstep with the liberal B.E.M. Mrs. Sears was looked down upon by the B.E.M. Her historic win had been devalued by the corporate left-leaning B.E.M. The only network that would interview her the next day was the Fox Network. You won’t see her face splashed across any major magazine publication like Time or Vanity Fair. That honor is reserved for Michelle Obama who has graced their cover several times.

Ibram X. Kindi (formerly Ibram Henry Rogers) is an author, professor, and anti-racist activist at Boston University. In the black community, he is also known as a race hustler. He pits groups or attempts to pit groups against one another based on some conflated rationale about what and how blacks are perceived, how past treatment affects any future and current interactions, and whatever spews out of his mouth as being the gospel according to him. From his point of view, we all are monolithic thinkers. We must adhere to his principles, his philosophy, his way of worshipping the ground he walks upon. He is paid handsomely for his obtuse rhetoric of one-dimensional thinking. He’s more problematic than beneficial. His viewpoint is more of a cult teaching than anything else you can hang your hat on after you hear him speak if you can sit through I long enough.

Where have we gone? In a time where the moniker of diversity and inclusion is bandied back and forth like a bottle of nitroglycerin, she is not discussed at all about her with the B.E.M. Winsome Sears’ candidacy was not run on her being a black woman, she ran on the issues, she ran on her character, a Marine vet among others. But because of her political ideology, the mainstream media has been tepid in praising her victory.

Kyle Rittenhouse is a Hispanic 18-year-old young man. He has been accused of wounding one man and killing two other men, all three of who are white. Mr. Rittenhouse was associated with being a white supremacist. How can that be you ask? It is because he participated in trying to defend a city from rioters and looters during the summer of 2020 where roving bands of people who were protesting a police shooting was mixing in some looting and setting fires to businesses all in the name of anarchy under the guise of peaceful protests. Mr. Rittenhouse has pleaded not guilty across the board as closing arguments begin. Even Joe “Let’s Go, Brandon” Biden has accused him of being a white supremacist and domestic terrorist during the presidential campaign. But Joe “Fartman” Biden spoke way too soon on this as he pandered to his base.

Big Tech social media platforms and the mainstream media want to control the narrative on this case. It is intentional when you see any fundraising efforts dedicated to the defense of Mr. Rittenhouse get a denial based on some unknown arbitrary and obscure clause in terms of service agreement. Your conspiratorial radar pops up as to who is pulling the string with all of this? You have every right to feel this way.

There is pushback on this though. Mr. Chappelle announced that he is not bending the knee to these flaccid cancel culture fanatics. Larry Elders has been bolstered by the fact that he ran a good campaign without the backing of the mainstream interest who backed Newsom and should he decide to run again, he will be better prepared and equipped to make the challenge even more certain. Winsome Sears is not stopping and has already accepted the challenges coming to her position. She will accept it with grace and dignity just as the Marines prepared her. And should Mr. Rittenhouse be acquitted on all charges, let’s hope he sues those who slandered him as a white supremacist.

And let me leave you with a bit of a history lesson. It was a cabal of southern Democrats who bestowed us with Jim Crow laws. If you don’t know what Jim Crow laws were, basically, it was a set of rules that hampered the movements of black people by legalizing racial segregation. Starting in 1865 and ending in 1968, blacks were restricted from doing things we have taken for granted, like rights to assemble, due process, vote, not being used as slave labor while incarcerated. But today’s Democrats seem to want this racial divide. Kamala Harris, while attorney general in California, put prisoners to work in putting out forest fires. These men were not trained as firefighters and they weren’t paid like firefighters. They were used as the men from the Jim Crow days. Black men were arrested during that era just for walking on a train track accused of trespassing. This is your vice president who used the vestiges of Jim Cow and got slave labor. What is that old saying, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,”.

Are WE repeating ourselves by forgetting the past?

 

Why Joe Rogan Should Sue CNN

Letting it Slide Only Empowers Them

slan·der·ous

/ˈslandərəs/

adjective: Also known as oral or spoken defamation, slander is the legal term for the act of harming a person’s reputation by telling one or more other people something that is untrue and damaging about that person. Slander can be the basis for a lawsuit and is considered a civil wrong (i.e., a tort).

li·bel·ous

/ˈlībələs/

adjective: Containing an untrue written statement that causes people to have a bad opinion of someone. See the full definition for libelous in the English Language Learners Dictionary.

I originally began to write about the outrageous claims the mainstream media was reporting on the claim that Joe Rogan was using a horse de-worming medication to treat a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) government-funded and produced virus, COVID-19, that came about under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci, an infection he had acquired. Just about every major news outlet was reporting this in addition to a claim that an Oklahoma hospital was being inundated with patients that were overwhelming the health system with overdoses from horse deworming medication. This was purer misinformation. The hospital system in question was not suffering from any patient overload crisis. The photo used to caption the story was unrelated to any hospital siege and the photo in question was shot during the wintertime. Rachel Maddow, an MSNBC hack who has been sued on more than one occasion, reported the hospital story but refused to take down the story after it was proven to be false. She too added to the misinformation of Joe Rogan’s treatment with Ivermectum with him taking a horse de-wormer. But it was CNN who seems to take the full weight of reporting that Mr. Rogan was using a horse de-wormer and took full glee in disparaging the infamous podcaster.

As I said, I started to write about this when it happened but decided to wait because the media ran with this false story for a while. Something did occur however, Mr. Rogan has a sit-down interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s medical correspondent. As the interview got underway, the topic of CNN reporting that Joe Rogan was dosing himself with a horse de-wormer by CNN came to the forefront. Dr. Gupta tried steering away from the topic but Mr. Rogan was persistent on the subject. He wanted to know why CNN LIED and made the claim that he was taking a veterinarian medicine horse de-wormer and not the human form medication? Dr. Gupta had no answer other than they should not have said that Mr. Rogan was taking a horse de-wormer.

Being a public person is like living on a double-edge sword. It’s the ying/yang, hot/cold, good/bad dynamic of being someone who has accepted that thorny crown of being a celebrity. Such is the scenario of one Joseph James Rogan, also known as Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan is a somewhat marginally accomplished podcaster who can be found on something called Spotify. Apparently, Spotify compensated Mr. Rogan for his services and I believe he got, minimum, at least $20 an hour.

People tune in to Mr. Rogan’s podcast to hear just about anything Mr. Rogan feels like having a discussion on. From UFOs to politics to films to sharks to cultural changes, the subject matter varies. As millions tune in which may be why CNN has a hard-on for Joe Rogan. On one particular podcast, Mr. Rogan decided to inform his audience that he had experienced a slight illness. He had contracted the very popular National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) government-funded and produced virus, COVID-19, that came about under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Upon suspecting that he may be a carrier of the NIAID-funded and produced virus under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci, Mr. Rogan, a fully independent thinker who is not led around by an Australian sheepdog, decided to go to his doctor for verification. As he suspected, Mr. Rogan did have the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) government-funded and produced virus, COVID-19, that came about under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci, Mr. Rogan, a very astute common-sense man, spoke with his doctor about treatment. Mr. Rogan not being a Fauci sheep follower looking for alternatives other than a prototype vaccine with known side effects that have yet to be patently approved by a government propaganda agency that encourages you to take a drug that has several side effects that includes death that is an acceptable risk as claimed by the mainstream media Mr. Rogan chose to listen to his doctor and between the two of them, they agreed on a series of medication to treat the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) government-funded and produced virus, COVID-19, that came about under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci.

One of the medications that Mr. Rogan had employed was a medication called Ivermectin.

Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic drug that is used to treat river blindness and intestinal roundworm infection in humans and to de-worm pets and livestock. When Mr. Rogan informed his audience that one of the medications that he used to treat the NIAID funded and produced virus under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci, he informed them that he used Ivermectin. The non-fact checking mainstream media heard about Mr. Rogan using Ivermectin and quickly ran with the narrative that Mr. Rogan had used a horse deworming medication. This, however, was a boldface fallacy based on nothing more than a targeted response to attack Mr. Rogan’s persona, image, and standing as a source for information and news with an ambition to make him look like a lunatic despot relying on unproven science as a means to a treatment. Mr. Rogan’s health improved following his doctor’s medical knowledge, medical direction, and advice

CNN, a low-tier news organization reported on their broadcast and on their website that Mr. Rogan had used a horse deworming medication that went to at least 224,000 broadcast viewers and 334,000 website viewers. At the beginning of this article is the definition of slanderous and libelous. CNN spurious reporting on Mr. Joe Rogan was slanderous and libelous. As such, there are numerous factors as to the reasons why Joe Rogan should sue CNN.

1. CNN has not learned its lesson after settling a similar defamation lawsuit involving the fake reporting of the Covington Catholic School and a then 17-year-old student, Nick Sandman. Mr. Sandman had been accused of harassing a Native American protestor and was labeled a white supremacist because he and his classmate were wearing red baseball caps with the words “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN also known as MAGA hats that are linked to President Donald Trump’s political campaign. On the horse de-worming story, CNN has failed to correct the story nor issued an apology to Mr. Rogan.

2. Mr. Rogan’s reputation has been defamed. CNN has appeared to have taken a perverted glee into reporting the misinformation and ridiculing Mr. Rogan as a deranged individual who takes veterinarian medication as a substitute for human medication.

3. CNN dispersed misinformation through cable, satellite, and phone lines that allowed the horse de-worming story to be picked up by several other news outlets that feed into the false story as being authentic. CNN caused this false story to be amplified even further reaching into the market on a global basis.

4. CNN has caused damages to Mr. Rogan’s reputation by having him defend his position and refute the false story on more than one occasion in order to preserve his image and his livelihood and to those who rely on his talent in several forays and enterprises.

5. CNN has enjoined other new outlets into the defamation arena who also reported the false horse de-worming story. This was more so evident with MSNBC and Rachel Maddow who took exceptional delight in reporting the horse de-worming false story.

6. None of the mainstream media, Internet platforms, and social media venues did any fact-checking that they claim to employ to verify the claim. The fact-checking claim only benefits their posture in order to make them look efficient, right, and unbiased when the opposite is suspected.

Mr. Rogan is an affable man. He is not a rug that allows you to easily walk all over him. This CNN dust-up is not over. Mr. Rogan will seek redress on this matter in one form or the other. CNN has played the bully card one time too many. Stay tuned.

 

Dune 2021 Lives Under The Shadow of Dune 1984

Denis Villeneuve Can’t Seem to Separate His Vision from The Original

There are certain films that are considered classics. Sometimes these films that become classics are based on the characters, the story, the scenery, and in most cases, the fact that there aren’t any sequels attached to them. Films like The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, Old Yeller, A Clockworks Orange, and Blade Runner fall into that category with an asterisk attached to Blade Runner. Blade Runner on its own is a classic but the sequel is not. What the sequel has in common with Dune 2021 is the director, Denis Villeneuve. He has tasked himself to remake the sci-fi classic, Dune, a film originally made in 1984. There will be a line of demarcation with these films. One will be called Dune 1984 and the other as Dune 2021 muck like Ghostbusters 2016 because we know what that is. Dune 2021, is a visual exception when it comes to special effects. It should because it eclipse the original special effects ten-fold. But the special effects aren’t the problem. It’s the ghost of the original that you can’t escape plus there is a major twist at the end of this film.

We get a refresher course and we are reintroduced to these characters in Dune 2021. Oscar Issacs does an admirable and more fleshed-out representation of Duke Leto Atreides. Timothée Chalamet plays

Paul Atreides with a purpose mixed with an air of ambivalence. As each character is reintroduced to us, you get the sense that there was an unwritten rule to totally divorce themselves from the acting style of Dune 1984. You can sense the purpose and intent to steer far and away from those roles. But that becomes an issue because their intent to remove themselves from those roles only amplifies what they are trying to avoid.

One of the most memorable roles in the Dune 1984 film was that of musician/actor, Sting. He portrayed Feyd-Rautha. What I remembered most about Sting’s portrayal was just how bad his acting was/ In just about every scene Sting was in, he chewed up the scenery with bad acting and bad over-acting. How could he screw up a line of “I will kill him,….. I WILL KILL HIM” in such a way that it’s a meme. His line is followed up by Paul Atreides’ “I will bend like a reed in the wind”. 

To this day, people still quote these lines and that quotability factor is what permeates into Dune 2021. There isn’t anything that is memorably quotable with Dune 2021. This remake clocks in at 2 hours and 35 minutes. Visually, Villeneuve does a yeoman’s job on the camera work just like he did with Blade Runner 2046. Where he misses the mark is not separating these characters from the 1984 version by giving the Dune 2021 characters more gravitas. As the film went on, the characters were starting to fill like cardboard cutouts.

When Zendaya's character, Chani, finally appears, she says very little while trying to be aloof. Of late, a lot of her roles seem to highlight her being aloof to some degree. Her appearance though is only an appetizer. Just as you start to get to the main course, the film ends. WHAT???? Yep, that’s the twist, it abruptly ends. Was this always in the cards? Was this movie suppose to be a continuation? I saw or heard no press that this would be the case. Shouldn’t this be part of the film’s hype?

Dune 1984 clocked in at 2 hours and 17 minutes. Everything was contained in that film. Dune 2021, at 2 hours and 35 minutes, has very long scenes that feel like you’re driving across the country looking at the cows grazing on grass. Where are we going? What’s the point of the travel if there is no payoff to the journey.? The film did not end on a cliffhanger, it just ended to the point where it’s forgettable. You’re cut off guard by this abrupt ending. Furthermore, there is no desire to see this film should there be a second part. Dune 2021 is just bloated It’s bloated like a blue whale washed ashore on the beach that’s been lying there for ten days.

This film is not like the original Star Wars or the Avengers film where there are cliffhangers just hook you into wanting these sequels. Dune 2021 is missing the Avengers formula of enticing viewers with its cliffhangers. I don’t know why Denis Villeneuve chose Dune 2021 as his next film following Blade Runner 2046 because he just repeated himself in tome and style without giving anything to the characters and substance. If this was a battle for supremacy, Dune 1984 would win for the camp, the style, and even the bad overacting because it was memorable substance.

2 out of 5 stars

 

JAMES BOND IS DEAD !!!!

No Time To Die takes the Route of Avengers: Endgame in Bond's Final Bow

It’s probably best to describe the new James Bond film, No Time To Die, as a new old film. It was scheduled for release in November 2019, but was postponed to February 2020 and then to April 2020 and finally was scheduled for an October 2021 release date. Finally, it has reached the big screens in a build-up that is coated in controversy due in part to the director, one of Bond’s co-stars, and a marketing campaign that keeps courting things that are turning off Bond’s core fan base.

No Time to Die has a running time of 2 hours and 43 minutes. It is the longest-running film in the history of the franchise. They could have done some editing at the beginning by cutting some of the introduction to the film out. We were given two different kinds of opening, a kid being terrorized by an assassin which, I suppose was used to set up a back story to the character, and the other is set in a contemporary time as the girl is now a woman in a relationship with Bond.

On the surface, things are seemingly okay but the arm of Spectre is looming large. Bond goes to the grave of his deceased paramour. Bond is seeking some sort of closure in the ritual of burning notes so that he can finish out that chapter in his life. But this is Bond. The chapters in his life are dogeared pages and bookmarks that keep flipping back and forth the pages of his existence. Her crypt blows up with him in front of it. He gets up stunned and realizes that he must go to his new lover, Madeleine, played by Lea Seydoux, You now have the trailer cut scenes in a nutshell. We wrap this up in a tidy bow as Bond and company escape the near-death experience but it comes with a price, the matter of trust. Bond says adieu to Seydoux.

Fast forward five years and Bond is a private citizen but just like the Godfather’s Michael Corleone once said, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”, James Bond is pulled back into the espionage game. He is recruited by his CIA friend, Felix Leiter. There is a biological weapon and a mad scientist/doctor who needs to be gotten. In Bond films, these tropes are standard fare, there is usually a mad scientist/doctor and there is usually a bioweapon of lethal degree. While Bond is gearing up to work with the CIA, he’s being tailed by a new female operative. She blatantly inserts herself into Bonds’ proximity in such an egregious way that is in no way being spy smooth.

She disables his vehicle forcing him to get a ride with her on her Vespa. I should note that in this iteration of James Bond, we do not get a list of Q-toys that have always been a highlight in this franchise. Bond is on a Vespa. I don’t know if that’s intentional emasculation or they couldn’t afford any new Q-toys? At his apartment, she goes to his bedroom and removes her wig, and sits on his bed. She reveals her identity and in a most annoying, aggressive, antagonistic, smug, arrogant manner that immediately defines who this character is and not in a good way. She denigrates Bond. She threatens Bond. I found it unnecessary for her to threaten Bond with shooting him in his working knee. In fact, I found it unnecessary for her character to be written this way. She came looking for a fight with Bond when there was no reason for her to have any animosity for Bond. If she had a dick, she would have pulled it out to prove she’s better than Bond. As the film went on, all I could see from her being aggrieved by Bond seemingly only for the fact that it was because he was Bond. Her prejudice for Bond is heavily worn on her sleeve.

She seemed to think that being 007 was a prestigious moniker but Bond quietly stated to her, “It’s only a number,” By saying that, probably pissed off her fragile ego. This definitely was Bond’s moment of facing wokeness. He took the hits and was still standing. This Bond is battling evil scientists/doctors, super villains, and now wokeness. 

We saw the new female 007 characterization coming 3,000 miles away because we’re in this #MeToo Hollywood mode of film-making. You roll your eyes to the back of your head when you hear the triggering words of diversity and inclusion. They are more like curse words in the film industry that people speak in hush tones. We are getting agenda propaganda films based on a single-person ideology with an ax to grind. This doesn’t translate into cinema dollars and only alienates the core fan base. 

Even the director, Cary Joji Fukunaga, has called out Sean Connery’s James Bond as a rapist. Seriously, you’re going to tear down this original Bond icon by calling him a rapist? You’ve turned yourself into the judge, jury, and executioner. Lashana Lynch even talked about her feeling as if she was experiencing segregation. Please stop if you haven’t gone through the experiences of people who have gone through real segregation and civil rights violations if you weren’t born during the time of real turmoil. A Twitter feud does not equate to social injustice. If you are being paid huge sums of money for playing a pretend spy, stop complaining about your perceived injustice. You haven’t been sprayed with a water hose, attacked by police dogs, or had a family member lose their life to a mob lynching. Get over yourself.

So, back to the film. Blofeld is back in the equation. Under his auspicious direction, he develops the bioweapon although he’s in confinement. The bioweapon is used in a club where Bond is but he is spared while other people in his immediate vicinity start to drop. One of the most enjoyable scenes was watching the Ana de Armas character, Paloma, showcase her skills as a new agent in the field. For one brief shining moment, we get to see Bond back in form with his tuxedo and with a beautiful woman at his side. Paloma does a serviceable job in fighting 225-pound guys by literally throwing her full weight into them. This was more convincing than most films where the 100 lb. woman standing toe-to-toe fighting with some muscle neck guy.

Bond is brought back into the fold of MI6 while the female 007 gets even more consternation when Bond is brought in for a meeting and she is left out. Every chance she gets, she wants to put down Bond. But somehow, Bond is still respectful to this woman and yet she doesn’t deserve it. With Bond back in the fold, Blofeld needs to be questioned about the bioweapon. In order to do this, Bond’s former lover, Madeleine, must be involved. She, on the other hand, has a secret, she’s being coerced into using Blofeld’s own weapon against him. There is this awkwardness to the reunion. Bond extends his hand but she refuses to shake it as she is coated with the bioweapon. During the meeting, Bond brushes up against Madeleine and now he is a bioweapon carrier. Madeleine avoids meeting Blofeld as she leaves the facility following an intense conversation with Bond. . Blofeld meets with Bond where he antagonizes Bond to the point where he lunges at Blofeld and chokes him. Bond backs off but the damage has been done as Blofeld is dead seconds later much to the confusion of Bond.

So now it’s time for the former lovers to reconnect. Bond travels to her home where they talk. During the course of this gathering, a little girl comes out and we already know it’s Bond’s daughter but Madeleine puts up roadblocks by saying the child is not his daughter several times. Somehow though, you get the sense that Bond wasn’t subscribing to it. After spending the night and making breakfast for his newfound daughter, Bond gets a call from MI6. The female 007 is on her way to the bad guy, Safin. Bond looks at her trajectory and it’s where he is. He then realizes that Safin is after Madeleine.

A car chase ensues in a decent fashion, two of the bad guys’ vehicles are taking out but there are more popping up in the chase. Suffice it to say, Madeleine and her daughter are captured by Safin who takes them to his island.

Here is a question, why do most Bond villains have an island? This trope has been used so many times in Bond films that it seems like it’s a requirement. ReMax is having a sale on three small self-contained islands. If you are a supervillain in need of a spacious island that includes a state of the art landing strip, a secret underground lab, five bunkers to house your minions, your personal submarine base, a satellite array, eight gun turrets, seven restrooms, and two drinking fountains, we have the island for you. Cash is king. And if you act now, we’ll throw in two alligator moats at no charge, Se Habla Español.

Bond and female 007 makes it to Safin’s island. You get the prerequisite shootout. You get the prerequisite lab getting blown up. You get the prerequisite of killing off the bad scientist/doctor. You get the prerequisite rescue of the damsel and daughter. As they are escaping, the location of the island is radioed in and a warship is set to bomb the place. Bond goes back to open up the blast doors.

More shootout of bad guys as he gets to the control room and opens up the blast doors. While retreating back to his newfound family, Safin pops back up as a hackneyed trope is known to do in Bond films. Bad guys always pop back up for a final fight it’s a given. Bond has also been shot three times but I guess that’s okay as Bond has been shot before so I assume that Safin ran out of bullets? He really didn’t want to kill him just piss him off?

Bond prevails over Safin and Bond shoots him in the face but not before Safin infects Bond with the bioweapon that makes Bond lethal to the touch to his own daughter. By the way, the blast doors have closed again and Bond has to go back and reopen them. This adds time to his quest as the missiles grow closer. He reopens the doors and radios his team. He lets them know that he doesn’t have time to escape. Bond makes it outside as the missiles fall on the island blowing it up and killing Bond in the process.

His colleagues toast his farewell while Madeleine speaks about who her father was in the oddest way by speaking about Bond in a formal way. That was bizarre. She could have just said that the man that rescued us was your father. His name was James Bond and then you roll credits.

And just like Avengers: Endgame, they killed off another male icon. RIP James Bond

 

Dear Netflix, Disney+, Warner Bros., Paramount+, et. al.

Please Tell Your Actors who Promote Your Films to STFU

Have we all walked into an episode of the original Twilight Zone where reality has dissolved into a 1 minute and 30-second soundbite that must get clickbait prominence? I posed that hypothetical because somehow people seem to be buying into this conundrum as if ts a right of passage. I don’t know how it got started or when it got started but there has been this trend going on where actors of a certain status, from A-level to D-level, have been voices their discontent primarily with the fan base about how these fans should not disparage, condemn, or say anything negative about the picture they are starring in. In some cases, no fan had ever said anything bad about the film or TV show but the actor would make a preemptive strike and would solicit their comment negatively about the fan base. But why are they doing this? Social media has turned some sheep into paper lions and it comes with heavy costs, a downturn in box office revenues.

But what are the studios, who finance these costly productions, doing anything about it? So they have the motivation to reign in their actors? Depending on who that actor may be, they may not have any choice in the matter. Contractually, an actor must promote a film but how they promote it carries with it a big tent to move around in. Let’s take a look at the film, Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn.

First, this film had the worst title of a film that has ever come out in this century. The title left people confounded because it was so long and it was a mouthful to say. After one week of its release, the studio, Warner Bros. Changed it simply to Birds of Prey. But that wasn’t the only thing hampering this film. One of the actors, Ewan (pronounced U.N.)McGregor decided to include some controversial comments while promoting the film. In an interview with Good Morning America, McGregor said of the film “the film deals with misogyny in a very extreme way.” It’s “peppered with that sort of everyday misogyny that women have to put up with” from men, he noted. “It’s a good message to put out there to remind guys that those days are over.” His comments came during the height of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movement. Many viewed his comments as virtue signaling and an indictment against every man in existence. The film turned out to be a cinematic flop filled with identity politics and an incoherent mess of plot holes. After the film flopped at the box office, the female director, Cathy Yan, blamed misogyny for the film’s failure at the box office even when data showed that more men saw the film than women. She then went on to say that the film didn’t get any support because as she stated, “That was an extra burden that, as a women-of-color director, I already had on me anyway”. The implication being that the studio wasn’t giving her the needed support as opposed to her white male contemporaries. As this went on, the narrative kept changing while the studio kept quiet.

Another high-profile production helm by Netflix with director Kevin Smith became a slow-motion train wreck after Masters of The Universe: Revelations aired. What started off as a harmless innocuous blip of s comment from YouTube’s ClownfishTV proprietors Geeky Sparkes and Kneon responded to a rumor about what may have been coming inside the He-Man universe with certain characters and the direction of the story. In a surprise move, Kevin Smith decided to respond to the said rumors snd decided to plant a flag on that hill as a false rumor. However, when the Masters of the Universe was released, ClownfishTV clearly had won the war of credible source material and Kevin Smith was painted into a corner, including the walls and ceiling, as a liar. You would think that a rational person would amend his statement on the direction of his show but Kevin Smith went in a whole different more precarious route and doubled down with a completely new narrative. To say it got more ugly than Joe Biden trying to read Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers on a teleprompter while eating peanut butter and crackers would wholly underestimate the situation. Kevin Smith held a press conference to justify his stand on why he did what he did by using the term “subvert expectations”. Defenders of Kevin Smith brought up the standard rebuttal of it being a case of “toxic masculinity” even though there were a lot of women in that circle who also had a disagreement with the way Kevin Smith handled the new direction of Teela.

Furthermore, Kevin Smith threw Netflix not under the bus but under a long-running train claiming that Netflix “didn’t give a shit” about the backlash. As far as Netflix is concerned, bad press is good press from Kevin Smith’s mind’s eye of a lofty perspective. However, I find that hard to accept. Netflix has faced criticism in the past when it chooses to run the controversial film, Cuties, about a film prepubescent girls where one is seen blowing up a used condom. Netflix’s American audience implored them not to air it but they did anyway and as such, many people unsubscribed to them. It’s hard for me to believe that Netflix would be so negligent as to not care what their viewership would watch and subsequently resign from their service because of content. Masters of the Universe left the top 10 viewing list after one week.

You would think that Netflix may a learned a lesson or two from Cuties and Masters of The Universe: Revelations and perhaps they might following the backlash from the latest live adaptation of the Japanese anime, Cowboy Bebop. The live-action Cowboy Bebop is about to air on Netflix and for those who are familiar with the IP, Cowboy Bebop is canon. However, the live-action version did some creative changes particularly with two of the characters. Instead of three Asian characters, there is only one. Two of them are race-swapped, one black and one Latin. Of those two, the female is Latin. While the rumbling has been muted on the race swapping, the same cannot be said about Faye Valentine’s costume.

 In the anime, Fave is dressed in yellow hot pants, thigh-high clear stockings, white shoes with a heel, a red pull-down jacket, and a yellow crop top, and a yellow headband. In the live-action version, Faye is wearing dark shorts, it looks like dark pantyhose under a mesh tattered stocking, a red leather jacket, black hiking boots, and a muted yellow shirt. Fans of the anime saw this as problematic and being untrue to the character. This sentiment was bolstered by the fact that there is a legion of cosplayers who paid homage to the anime character and portrayed her IRL to the letter. So why couldn’t this actress, Daniella Pineda portray Faye Valentine in all of her splendor like the anime?

Judging from Daniella Pineda’s response, the fan base was objectively insulting her. But when you dissect her response to the criticism of the costume the live-action version was portraying, the numerous cosplayers dressed as the anime character, and the hypocrisy of Daniela Pineda dressed scantily in a thong, hot pants, boots, and a top. The Internet never lets go of your past deeds, what is forgotten is remembered. Daniella’s comments take everything out of context. Nobody criticized her about her height, her breast size, or her thighs. They talked about her costume only. The cosplayers were women of all sizes and shapes. They proved that dressing up like the character could have been done without any issues. And as YouTubers Nina Infinity and Anna of That Star Wars Girl fame has pointed out, many women from the WWE dress in less attire than that and they keep everything in. But we are in a different era where men aren’t supposed to look at women in revealing outfits from their point of view.

But this time, Netflix stepped in and had Daniella remove the Instagram video to quell the controversy. But maybe it was too late because now there is a sizeable number of people who are fans of the anime who are now opting to forego the live-action piece because of Daniella’s comments. She put down the fans and was highly dismissive of their concerns.

The latest person to throw their hat into the social media ring of WWW (Wide World of Whiners) is Simi Liu. He’s the most recent Marvel superhero who thinks he’s the first Asian superhero. At this stage of the game, there is no first anything anymore, just rewritten notes over scratched-out icons. Hey, Jack, let’s just race swap or gender-bend the character and give them a social name like The Stunning Braveman/ — Bravewoman/ — BraveTrans, I don’t know, is Safe-Space still available? But let’s get back to Mr. Liu. He has taken it upon himself to shine a perspective light on his character of Shang-Chi as the first Asian superhero. There is a saying though, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,”. In Mr, Liu’s case, he has forgotten a lot of cinematic history with Asian characters. 

The first one that comes to mind for me is Bruce Lee’s Kato who came to life on the TV series, The Green Hornet. Mr. Liu stated that “And it means that kids growing up today will have what I didn’t, which are characters that are aspirational, that also reflect their lived experience.” Has he not seen Kato, that character was aspirational for a lot of kids. Who didn’t want to be Kato when you were little?

For me, Bruce Lee was the start of all Asian characters When Enter The Dragon came out, his style was unique and nobody has ever been successful in duplicating any part of his move or mannerisms. Sure, others have made vain attempts by tweaking their nose with their thumb to mimic the tick of Bruce Lee or beckons the person to come over when he flips his hand but those are pale pretenders.

Mr. Liu must not have seen any action films starring Asian characters. He doesn’t recognize the works of Jet Li, Chow Yun-Fat, Ziyi Zhang, Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan, or even his co-star in his film, Michelle Yeoh. Every one of these actors has had “aspirational” characters. If I were Michelle Yeoh I would feel insulted by him not recognizing her accomplishments in cinema with her body of work. Hell, she was an action Bond Girl. Mr. Liu needs to redeem himself after insulting these actors. I would recommend that he go back and read everything about Bruce Lee and the hell he went through for his art and how the TV series, Kung-Fu, was taken from him. Right now, he is the president of the WWW club (Wide World of Whiners).

And there is one more film I’d like to discuss, Black Widow. Everyone associated with this film promoted it. But there was one aspect that took the sail out of the film just a bit. Scarlett Johansson stated that her latest Marvel film, Black Widow, is a response to the #MeToo movement. She goes into further detail about which aspect of the movie taps into those aspects of the #MeToo zeitgeist. Here is the thing though, nobody wants to pluck down their money to buy a ticket or streaming service and be lectured to for something they are not a part of. Black Widow opened moderately average for a Marvel film but by the time the second week rolled around, it lost 70% of its audience and will struggle to break even.

All of these films have some aspect of wokeness about them. So far, these actors and directors are sabotaging their products. They are turning off the very audience that helps pays for the product. This era of “If you don’t like my politics, don’t buy my book.” is a serious negative aberration to fiscal soundness. As the cost of major tent-pole films keeps going up, no studio in the right fiscal mind can afford to allow unchecked talking points to go unanswered without some sort of intervention. Scarlett Johansson’s comments about her #MeToo Black Widow film might have cost Disney that $50 million she’s suing for? Kevin Smith killed the ratings on Masters of The Universe: Revelation to disappear after one week. Daniella Pineda has turned already upset the apple cart judging by a sampling of YouTube podcasts who’ve discussed her comments and gone through them with laser precision.

For the most part, social media is a boon and also a bust. It all depends on what is being put out there. It’s not for everyone. Not everyone needs to be heard. Not everyone has reverence for your activism. Not everyone enjoys your politics. Not everyone has monolithic thinking. Not everyone veers left. Hollywood needs to rethink who. Will they follow the company line when promoting it or will they leave that warm suckling of the teet for some cold gelatinous leftover spam?