A New Series and Some Time Off: Blog Update for July, 2021

 Hey everyone! How are you all doing this afternoon? I'm doing okay. My left arm is a little sore because I got my second COVID vaccination this morning. No real side effects so far, so I've got my fingers crossed that I won't get hit like a ton of bricks with side effects. Which is why I'm doing this post right now instead of tomorrow. Let's get into the blog update for the month of July.

As you may have noticed, I haven't posted anything on the blog in over a week and a half. That's because, aside from this post, I decided to take two weeks off. When I was still running the Wordpress site, I used to do this for a week or two in the summer and again at Christmastime, but last summer, blogging was all I could do to keep myself busy since I couldn't go anywhere. This summer however I decided to take two weeks off, knowing I was going to be getting my second dose today, and not knowing how I'll be feeling for the next few days. I'll be back to posting reviews next week.

Speaking of reviews, aside from the series I'm going to announce in the next paragraph, starting next week when I return from my two weeks hiatus, I'm returning to the blog to it's roots. Movie reviews, comic book reviews, TV episode reviews, and novel reviews. I'm going to continue doing the video game overviews that I started with the Mario franchise because those are alot of fun to do and I enjoy doing them every once in a while. I'm also still going to do the occasional Living with Disabilities post because not only do I enjoy doing them, but you seem to enjoy reading them too. However, I am cancelling the Disney VHS reviews in favour of a different project. 

Starting on Tuesday next week I'm going to be watching and reviewing every movie in the Walt Disney Animation Canon. That is, the animated movies that started getting released to theatres by Walt Disney in 1937 with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and going right up to Raya and the Last Dragon with additional entries as new movies come out and go on Disney+. Because I'm doing this weekly, Encanto will have had time to have it's theatrical run, there doesn't seem to be any plans to release it on Disney+'s Premier Access, and drop on Disney+ by the time I get to it, so we'll see how that goes. So here's my plan.

I'm going to be watching the movies in chronological order in how they were released theatrically so that I can also provide a history of Walt Disney Animation Studios as I go along with the movies. I considered doing it as a daily thing to just knock the movies out over the course of the summer, but then I wouldn't have time to do any other kinds of reviews, so I decided that weekly works just fine for me. I'm also going to be watching the movies in a variety of ways. I'll be watching the ones I have on VHS that way, the ones I have on DVD will be watched that way, and the ones I have access to on Disney+ will be watched that way as well. So join me for a revamped version of Disney Reviews starting next Tuesday, whenever I can get the first review up.

That's all I have to say for now. I will be back on Tuesday for my review of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a comic book review on Wednesday, a review of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episode "Green with Evil" on Thursday, and another movie review on Friday. So until then have a great long weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Movie Review: Luca (2021) [Spoilers!!!]

 Hey everyone! Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there. Today I'm going to talk about the brand new Pixar film, Luca. There's also going to be some minor spoilers so I can talk about my favourite parts of the movie, so if you haven't seen this movie yet, go watch it and then come back and read this review. With that out of the way, let's talk about Luca!

I honestly wasn't sure about Luca when Disney and Pixar first announced it almost a year ago. Just because I wasn't sure what the premise for the movie actually was. So I wasn't excited for it, because I was keeping my eye on it, especially after I watched Soul over the Christmas holidays. I didn't know what to expect when I sat down to watch the movie last night on Disney+. I loved it.

The thing about Luca is that there are elements that are twists on elements from films like The Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo, various Disney Channel Original Movies, and of course other teen films that have come out. But, it's actually inspired by the childhood of the film's director, Enrico Casarosa. Which automatically makes it relatable to everybody no matter where or when you grew up. And I love that about this movie.

I also love that this movie is so much fun and is just a fun coming of age film. Not every movie has to have a villain or high stakes to be good. Sometimes it can be simple, goofy, and entertaining without being too heavy. That's one of the things I prefer about the Pixar films that came out when I was in high school versus the more recent Pixar films. Don't get me wrong, I love Soul and both Coco and Onward look really good (I haven't seen them yet) but, most of the modern Pixar films that I have seen have been pretty heavy movies so it's nice to have something that I can just put on and enjoy for an hour and forty minutes before bed.

I love the friendship between Luca, Alberto, and Giulia. It's so sweet and innocent and very against the usual mold of childhood friendships on TV and in movies. We don't know how old Giulia is, but Luca is thirteen and Alberto is fourteen and their friendship reflects their age, which is pretty cool. Especially because at thirteen and fourteen years old, there's usually this pressure for guys and girls to start dating and because of that pressure, friendships between guys and girls can sometimes be awkward because they aren't sure if they should be dating or not, and that's not present here. Though there's a montage of Luca and Giulia getting along that could be interpreted as them falling for each other, but they don't play it that way and I really like that.

Speaking of that montage, it's actually one of my favourite scenes in the entire movie. Mainly because it shows them becoming close, and they're also oblivious to how it's making Alberto feel. Which is actually pretty realistic. Not necessarily to their situation because Luca and Alberto have only known each other for a week or two weeks at most by this point though there's no indication of what the actual timeline of this movie is, but it's realistic because sometimes when you're in middle school and early high school and you make a new friend you put all your energy into that friendship sometimes to the detriment of friends you've had longer. And unlike in many other teen movies and TV shows, they don't have a prolonged argument about it, Alberto just goes and reveals his identity as a sea monster to Giulia in an attempt to get Giulia to shun Luca. Which is a crappy thing for Alberto to do, but it backfires on him because Luca doesn't reveal himself, and pretends to be afraid of him, basically ostracizing Alberto.

My other favourite scene is near the end of the movie, where Luca and Alberto have fully revealed themselves as sea monsters to the townspeople and Ercole, the rich, snobby, bully of the town, tries to turn them against Luca and Alberto like how Gaston turned the villagers against the Beast in Beauty and the Beast. What I liked about this scene is that Ercole waited until he had already lost the race and so it just makes him look even more like a loser and the townspeople are like, "Nope, you're a moron!" and that's it. Like Ercole is supposed to be the bad guy of this movie, but he's not actually evil, he's just full of himself and an intolerant jerk and so he just looks really stupid trying to turn the townspeople against Luca and Alberto, even after Giulia's father, Massimo, defends them and it's great!

I kinda wanna talk about Luca's family for a few minutes because they were great. I loved it when Luca runs away from home near the beginning of the movie, and his grandmother is lying there, laughing at the fact that he left to do exactly what she's done before, which is great. Also, why does Luca's dad, Lorenzo, in his human form, look like a cross between Uncle Vernon from the Harry Potter movies, and Jimmy's friend, Carl, from Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001)? I don't know why I even thought that in the first place, but for the rest of the movie afterward, I couldn't get that out of my head. Luca's mom is your typical overprotective movie mom but she is only overprotective of Luca because of her unfounded fear of humans, which just disappears when she and Lorenzo are on the surface and playing with the children, but nothing's really done with it. And I'm okay with that because this isn't that kind of movie. So it's just there so that Luca will have a reason to run away from home so the rest of the movie can happen.

Overall, I think Luca is an awesome film. It feels like a movie that would've been made in the early 2000s, when this kind of movie was Pixar's go to kind of movie, when they were still in their infancy as an animation studio. It also feels like a very modern movie too, which makes it a nice combo of classic Pixar and modern Pixar as it does have a theme to it of being tolerant of other people. Which Ercole is not. If you've been on the fence about seeing this movie, I definitely recommend it. 

Alrighty, that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back on Tuesday with this week's Disney VHS review where I'll be talking about Walt Disney Cartoon Classics: Donald Duck's First 50 Years. So until then have great evening and I will talk to you later. Take care. 

Movie Review: The Wizard of Oz (1939)

 Hey everyone, happy Friday! How's it going? I'm doing well. Today I'm doing a very special movie review. Tomorrow would've been my late grandfather's birthday and The Wizard of Oz was one of his favourite movies. So in honour of his birthday, I'm going to review The Wizard of Oz. Also, even though I didn't put a spoiler label in the title of this post, there will be spoilers in this review. It's an almost 82 year old movie so it's not my fault if you've never seen it before. So let's get right into it shall we?

The Wizard of Oz is one of those movies that scared me when I first saw it on VHS when I was really young. I don't actually remember how old I was at the time, but young enough that the Wicked Witch legitimately scared me. But then I saw the movie on TV or I borrowed the VHS tape from my grandparents when I was a teenager and I fell in love with it. I always find it fascinating to see movies that were made in the 1930s and 1940s, because Hollywood was so different back then and everything you do on the internet or on TV today were all done in cinemas back then. If you wanted to watch the news, you went to the movie theatre. If you liked cartoons, you saw them in the theatre. If you were into live action serialized storytelling, you went to the theatre and watched movie serials. Not only was there no TV back in those days, but there was no such thing as home video. You went to the theatre to see a movie and that was it, unless you were lucky enough to go to the theatre more than once for the same movie, or you were lucky enough to catch a movie during it's theatrical re-release however many years later.

According to former Disney animator/animation director John Musker in the making of documentary for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,  the success of Walt Disney's classic animated film a year earlier is what led MGM to greenlight this movie. I don't know if that's actually true or not, but the page for the movie on the Oz Wiki says that the filmmakers were influenced by the success of the Disney movie to make the movie, but there doesn't seem to be any piece of information, not even the making of documentary on the Blu-ray, that says whether Snow White's success is what led MGM to actually greenlight the project. Especially since according to the Oz Wiki, filming was supposed to begin in Spring 1938, which was just a few months after Snow White's theatrical debut, following it's 1937 premiere. Back then filmmakers tended not to develop a movie until it's been pitched to a studio and given the go ahead by studio executives. 

I love this movie. It's fun and charming. It's also exciting. Even though I've seen this movie numerous times over the years I still don't know it well enough to remember what happens when through the movie. It's not like with Star Wars where I remember everything about the movie, including when important pieces of dialogue are spoken. Obviously the beginning through until Dorothy leaves Munchkinland is always as I remember it, but after that I don't remember when certain events happen. For example, I always forget whether Dorothy gets taken hostage by the Wicked Witch before the quartet gets to the Emerald City and meets the Wizard or if it happens after they get to the Emerald City. It happens after, because they go to kill the Witch and she attacks them with her army of flying monkeys, who capture Dorothy.

My favourite characters are Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West. Both Judy Garland and Margaret Hamilton did an amazing job of playing these two characters and their antagonistic chemistry is awesome and flows perfectly from Dorothy and Miss Gulch in the Kansas part of the movie at the beginning, to Dorothy and the Witch in the Oz segments of the film, which take up the rest of the movie. There's just an innocence to the character of Dorothy that I think Judy Garland portrays so well. Sadly I haven't actually seen any other movie in Judy Garland's filmography so I don't know how she does in those films, I just know that I like her in this movie.

Speaking of Miss Gulch, I thought it was interesting that she had as much power as she does given the period this movie was made in and what period it's set in (presumably the 1930s though it could be earlier). I mean she was able to get the sheriff to sign an order for Miss Gulch to take Dorothy's dog, Toto, and destroy him. I mean that's not really a good indication of anything, but Aunt Em's line at the end of that scene where she says that Miss Gulch owns half the county kinda stuck out to me during this viewing.

I feel like the Wicked Witch of the West was the first real cinematic villain in live action films. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs had the Wicked Queen, and the Flash Gordon movie serials had Ming the Merciless, but up to this point I don't think there'd been a full length live action movie that had the kind of villain that the Wicked Witch is, and is almost the prototype for characters like Darth Vader, Rita Repulsa, Queen Beryl, and many other main villain characters in movies, TV shows, and comic books.

Of course, The Wizard of Oz is one of many adaptations of the 1900 children's novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Hard to believe that the book was originally published 121 years ago. I've never read the book, so I don't know how the movie differs from the book given it's an adaptation not a direct translation. It's in the public domain though, and a version of the text is available in full on the Oz Wiki, so I can read it any time I want if I so choose. And I might decide to do that once I've read the Percy Jackson books, which my sister is lending me.

As I mentioned earlier, I originally saw The Wizard of Oz on VHS at my grandparents's house. I don't remember how old I was of course, but I couldn't've been less than 4 or 5 years old as I remember watching it for the first time. The VHS was the 1989 50th Anniversary home video release and I'd like to say that my grandparents bought it sometime between when it came out and when it went out of print prior to the film's next VHS release which came out in 1991. I have this release in my VHS collection now as it's one of the tapes I grabbed from Nana's house a few weeks before the pandemic hit last year. Which is how I watched it last night for this review. I feel like I saw the movie quite alot on this tape when I was a kid. Mainly because it was one of my grandfather's favourite movies and he'd occasionally have it on on the TV when we went over. I know I borrowed it at least once sometime in the mid-2000s when I was a teenager and had a VCR in my bedroom.

I also have the 2013 Blu-ray release, which came out for the film's 75th Anniversary. My brother got it for me for my birthday. It's got a two hour Making Of documentary, which I watched as soon as I got the Blu-ray. It's a pretty decent documentary.

One other thing that I wanted to touch on here, is the fact that MGM technically doesn't exist anymore. It still produces movies, but it doesn't distribute them to theatres anymore, aside from the James Bond films. The films they do produce are primarily distributed through other studios like Paramount, Warner Bros., or Sony, with their older catalogue from before 1985 being distributed by Warner Bros. which holds the distribution license via Turner Entertainment. Which is crazy to think about because MGM was one of the first movie studios alongside Paramount (originally Famous Players), Warner Bros, Universal, and United Artists

Overall The Wizard of Oz is a great movie. If you haven't seen it, I implore you to watch it on Netflix or pick it up on Blu-ray, or whatever your preferred physical media format is, and watch it. It's awesome and you will have a fun time watching it. Does it have it's flaws? Yes, but every movie does. This movie's biggest flaw for me is that the Wicked Witch shows up several times throughout the picture and keeps deciding to hold off on killing Dorothy until SHE'S LITERALLY ON THE WITCH'S FRONT LAWN!!!! If that's not the prototype for every children's movie and TV show villain to come, I don't know what is. Lol. Otherwise, the pacing is good, the characters are fun, and even the songs are great.

Alright guys that's gonna be it for me for today. I'll be back on Sunday for my review of the new Pixar film, Luca which dropped on Disney+ today. I also have this week's episode of Loki to watch since I haven't done that yet. As I said in my review, I enjoyed the first episode, but the thing is I don't feel the need to rush onto Disney+ first thing after breakfast on the day an episode drops. So we'll see what I feel like doing tonight once I've had dinner. In the meantime I hope you have a wonderful evening and an awesome weekend and I will talk to you soon. Take care. 

The History of Walt Disney Home Entertainment: Walt Disney Cartoon Classics Vol. 4: Sport Goofy (1983)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing well on this Tuesday. Today I'm going to be talking about the second Neon Mickey era Disney VHS tape in my collection. It's another cartoon short compilation from the Walt Disney Cartoon Classics series, Sport Goofy. It was released in 1983, a year before the Walt Disney Classics launched with Robin Hood. I've also modified this series a little bit so that it focuses on the main release lines such as the Walt Disney Classics, Masterpiece Collection etc, in addition to a few releases, like the original VHS releases for the original four Winnie the Pooh featurettes, and the Disney Sing-Along Songs series, and a few other movies, both live action and animated,  that don't fit into the other categories. So without further ado, let's hop into our preferred method of time travel, and go back to 1983, the year that Return of the Jedi was first released to theatres.

The Walt Disney Home Video Cartoon Classics series is one that I'm not all that familiar with. I don't remember seeing any of these releases on the shelves at Rogers Video and we didn't own any of them either. I do remember watching the early Disney cartoons on TV, including a few Goofy ones, such as The Big Wash which my grandmother had taped off the TV, along with Winnie the Pooh and A Day for Eeyore, and I think one or two Chip 'n' Dale cartoons. Basically the idea for this release line is compiling the cartoon shorts according to character and theme. For example, this tape is a collection of seven sports themed Goofy cartoons like How to Play Baseball and Goofy Gymnastics. 

I feel like I'm going to be saying this alot during this series, but the opening for this tape is cool. It has a modified version of the Neon Mickey logo that says "The magic lives on...Walt Disney Home Video" which is actually on the back of some of the Neon Mickey clamshells in 1983 as Disney was starting to promote their home video releases by this point.

As previously mentioned in my other Disney home media posts, Ron W. Miller was the CEO of the Walt Disney Company by 1983 and was a year away from being ousted by Roy E. Disney and replaced by Michael Eisner. Miller was a major proponent for Walt Disney Home Video and championed the release of the classic animated movies on home video formats, which is how Dumbo, The Three Caballeros, Fun and Fancy Free, Alice in Wonderland, and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh got released on VHS, Betamax, and Laserdisc in the early 80s. But, as we all know, Disney execs were still hesitant to release movies like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio on home video since Walt didn't air those on the Disneyland TV series back in the 50s and 60s. Though clips would occasionally be used on the show in the 70s and in specials like the 50th anniversary Snow White TV special hosted by Dick Van Dyke.

Another interesting piece of this history that I just thought of is the timeline for the launch of the Walt Disney Classics. I'll get into that more when I review the 1984 VHS release of Robin Hood, but Disney had to have begun planning that lineup at this point, given they were a year away from Robin Hood's home video debut and decisions had to be made so that the marketing department could promote the release. Especially since the early Walt Disney Classics tapes from 1984, 1985, and 1986 were released concurrently with later Neon Mickey releases. Like I said, I'll get more into that when I talk about the 1984 Robin Hood VHS and the start of the Walt Disney Classics in two weeks. 

The ending of the tape is even more cool as it shows the 1983 "Walt Disney and You" promo after the program. This is the first preview on Disney home video releases as the tapes from this period didn't have previews on them generally. This wouldn't start happening until the late 80s with the Walt Disney Classics line though regular Walt Disney Home Video releases of live action movies and series like the Disney Sing-Along Songs releases wouldn't have previews before the movie or program until about 1993 or so. Though The Rocketeer was released on VHS in 1991 or 1992 and it has one preview before the movie. I'll talk about that more when I get to that release.

The program itself wasn't bad. I'm not a sports/athletics guy, so I found these particular Goofy cartoons to be a little boring, though some were pretty funny to watch. Especially the golf one, How to Play Golf. Honestly, the two How to cartoons are probably my favourite, mainly because I've heard of these cartoons for so long, but have never actually seen them before. Goofy doesn't actually talk in any of these cartoons either. There's just a narrator through all of them. Though they do include the Goofy holler in some of them, as well as the Goofy laugh. Which is good.

Overall, this was a fun watch. Seeing that Walt Disney and You promo at the end of the tape made me feel like I was watching a piece of Disney history. In a way I was because the early to mid 80s was the start of Disney video releases. So it's great to be able to look at these pieces of Disney history, as well as pieces of my own childhood, particularly when I get into the Walt Disney Classics and Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection releases. If you're a Disney history buff, both for home video, and for the cartoons themselves, I recommend trying to find a copy. Mine is digitized so I don't actually know how easy the early Walt Disney Cartoon Classics releases are to find. I've heard they're rare, but some people are under the misconception that the Walt Disney Classics releases are rare. So who knows.

That's going to be it for me for today, but I'll be back on Friday for sure for this week's movie review, which is going to be the 1939 classic, The Wizard of Oz. Next week's Disney VHS review is going to be the ninth volume of the Walt Disney Cartoon Classics series, Donald Duck's First 50 Years. So until then have a great day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Manga Review: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (1992) [Spoilers!!!]

 Hey everyone! How were your weekends? Mine was quiet, as per usual these days. This is what happens when you're waiting for your second vaccination dose, not much of anything. I finished reading Volume 12 of Sailor Moon this morning. I started it this morning too. I had originally planned on finishing it tomorrow so I could review it on Wednesday, but the final volume is just one massive battle, and while there's alot of dialogue as well, it's a quick read. So that's what I'm going to be doing here today, reviewing the entirety of the original Sailor Moon manga from 1992. There will be spoilers so if you haven't read the manga yet, go do so before reading my review. Let's get into it.

Like many of you, my history with Sailor Moon began in 1995 when the original DIC dub of the anime came to Canada on YTV and Global. My siblings and I watched it every day, but it was on Global where we first saw it as we didn't have cable yet at the time. I don't remember what the first episode I ever saw was, but it was probably somewhere in the Rainbow Crystal/Zoycite arc as Terri Hawkes had already replaced Tracey Moore as the voice of Serena/Sailor Moon and then I saw the earlier episodes in reruns once the episodes of the first two seasons had gotten up to the point where the show was cancelled for a couple of years. I'll get into that when I review the anime. It wasn't until I was in high school in the early 2000s that I learned that Sailor Moon was a localized version of a series from Japan, much like how Power Rangers is an adaptation/localization of the Super Sentai series. It was also around that time that I found out that the show was based on a comic book series in Japan, adapted much like how we adapt characters like Batman, Superman and Spider-Man into live action movies, live action TV shows and animated series.

I never got the original english translated volumes of the manga when they came out here in the late 90s and early 2000s. Of course, back then I wasn't going into the manga section of Chapters (if there even was one) so I never saw it there, and the place where I got my comic books from at the time, also didn't have a manga section. So by the time I was an adult, the original volumes of the manga were out of print. Luckily from 2011 to 2013 Kodansha Comics USA re-released them and so I was able to get those editions. Between myself, my sister, and Brad, I managed to get all twelve volumes, plus both volumes of Codename: Sailor V. However, there's also a few volumes of short stories, that took place adjacent to the main story in the manga, though I haven't gotten those at all and have never read them.

I've heard some Sailor Moon fans complain that there isn't much character development for the other Sailor Scouts (yes, I used the original English dub name for the group get over it), beyond Usagi and Mamoru. Honestly, that's a fair assessment. I think that's because the story progresses pretty rapidly and so there isn't as much time or room for tons of character development outside of Usagi, our protagonist, and Mamoru, our secondary protagonist. While I prefer the way the anime does it, I also appreciate what Naoko Takeuchi was doing with the manga. Especially since Mamoru actually had something to do as Tuxedo Mask instead of being the villains's punching bag like he is in the anime and the Outer Scouts, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Saturn all have things to do that they end up not having in the anime. Especially in the original English dub which only went up to Sailor Moon Super S (season 4) and never did Sailor Moon Stars (season 5).

I think my favourite arc in this entire series is the Stars arc (Sailor Moon Stars in the anime). Mainly because it's the arc that I'm not familiar with from the anime. So I didn't have the baggage of the anime in the back of my mind while I was reading it. Whereas with the other four arcs I remember so much from the anime, mostly the original DIC/Cloverway English dub as that's what I grew up with, that I had to constantly remind myself that this isn't the original anime and that events happen in a more compressed fashion than they do in the anime.

The story gets a bit convoluted as there's suddenly a bunch of Sailor Guardians from outside the solar system, with all of them connected to a planet. Naoko Takeuchi probably came up with this idea as she was going along, but didn't plan it out beforehand. Manga are exactly like Western comic books, in that they're ongoing and so the artist, who ends up being the creator and writer as well, has to constantly come up with ideas as he or she goes along. This was the final arc of the series and it works pretty well from that standpoint.

In fact, I like how the ending comes full circle. At the end of the manga, Usagi and Mamoru get married, and Usagi is pregnant with Chibiusa, a.k.a. Small Lady, a.k.a. Sailor Chibi Moon. Which is pretty cool, as it also begins the Second Silver Millennium, which will eventually lead to the start of Crystal Tokyo, and the events which lead Chibiusa and the Black Moon Clan to go back to the 20th Century as it shows in the Black Moon arc (Sailor Moon R in the anime). 

I also like how Chibiusa became Sailor Chibi Moon in the manga versus how it happened in the anime. So in the manga, Chibiusa turned back from the Dark Side because of Sailor Pluto's self-sacrifice at the end of the Black Moon arc. At the same time her future version of the Silver Crystal appeared, transforming her into Sailor Chibi Moon. This is better in my opinion because it connects her to the events going on, whereas in the anime, she doesn't become Sailor Chibi Moon until halfway through Sailor Moon S (season 3) and there's no actual connection to what's going on in the season as a whole. She just shows up as Sailor Chibi Moon during a battle that Sailor Moon and Sailor Mars were involved in. I'll talk about that more when I get to the anime. 

That's all I really have to say about Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon. It was an interesting read, especially the later Infinity, Dream, and Stars (Sailor Moon S, Sailor Moon Super S, and Sailor Moon Stars in the anime) arcs, as I don't hear about them as much as I do the Dark Kingdom and Black Moon (Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon R in the anime) arcs. If you're a Sailor Moon fan and you haven't read the manga I highly recommend it. It's a good story, even though it sacrifices character development, aside for Usagi/Sailor Moon and Mamoru/Tuxedo Mask. Chibiusa also has an interesting story arc in the later three arcs.

That's going to be it for me for today, I'll be back tomorrow for this week's Disney VHS review, where I'll be taking a look at Walt Disney Cartoon Classics: Sport Goofy. And then we'll see how things go on for Wednesday, but I probably won't post anything that day. Pixar's latest movie, Luca drops on Disney+ on Friday, so I'm going to watch it on Saturday night and have a review out for you on Sunday. Otherwise, I'll have another movie review out for you on Friday. I haven't quite decided what that movie is going to be yet though. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Movie Review: Home Alone 3 (1997)

 Hey everyone! I hope you're all having a good weekend so far. I went for a drive with my parents this morning just so I could get out of the house for a little bit. Right now though I'm going to be reviewing the 1997 third film in the Home Alone series, Home Alone 3. I might say some controversial things in this review regarding my opinion on this movie versus my opinion on Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, so just be aware of that as you read it. So with that out of the way let's get into this review.

I didn't grow up with the first two Home Alone movies. I vaguely remember seeing them when I was a little kid and I remember playing the NES game for the first movie, but they weren't movies that I watched regularly. However, Home Alone 3 is a movie I watched pretty regularly when I was 12, 13, 14 and even 15 years old because it came out on VHS in 1998 and I got the tape for either my 12th birthday, or Christmas of that year. I can't remember for sure.

While I watched the movie last night, I kept wondering why people hold the first two movies in such high regard over this one. I mean the entire Home Alone franchise is completely unrealistic in terms of their story, and the third movie is almost a reboot of the series, similar to how Batman Forever was almost a reboot of the Batman Motion Picture Anthology series following Batman Returns. Regardless, the entire series is ridiculous and you have to suspend your disbelief in order to enjoy Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. So why don't people like Home Alone 3?

I don't think it has anything to do with it not being the cast from the previous two movies. I think it's because the Home Alone series is such an early 90s thing, that by 1997, when this movie came out, they didn't care anymore. I mean 1997 was the year that Spawn, Steel, Batman & Robin, and Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie came out along with Men in Black, and all of them, except for possibly Men in Black pretty much killed the comic book based movie, because they were pretty ridiculous. Also Titanic came out the week after Home Alone 3, so that meant this movie was done once James Cameron's hugely popular film was theatrically released. It also dominated the home video market in 1998, luckily this movie came out on VHS in June, three months before Titanic did.

Honestly, I really like this movie. I know, it doesn't have Kevin McAllister or Marv and Harry in it, but to be quite honest Kevin was a jerk in those first two movies, and didn't really learn anything in either film. In this movie, Alex was trying to do the right thing when he called the police. It's just it took so long for the cops to get there that the crooks were able to disappear. It's not Alex's fault. The adults, and his siblings, just didn't believe him. Not to mention his brother and sister just made fun of him the whole movie until near the end when they found out from Agent Stuckey that Alex was actually in danger.  

I also think that the movie is much more realistic in certain aspects than elements from the first two movies were. I mean it's much more believable that Karen, Alex's mom, would be forced to leave Alex at home because he's sick with the chicken pox to go into work, than it is that an entire family would forget one kid at home when they go away on vacation. I'm not saying I dislike Home Alone or Home Alone 2 because I don't. In fact I like both movies quite a bit. What I'm saying is people hate on Home Alone 3 for some of the same reasons they praise the first two movies, which is really weird to me.

The stakes almost feel higher in this movie too. Harry and Marv are pretty small time compared to the international criminals in this movie. Actually, the entire first ten minutes of the film feels like a spy movie. The crooks get the job from their benefactor, a businessman in Hong Kong, they acquire the missile chip, and everything goes wrong once they get to the airport, because Mrs. Hess was impatient and picked up the first package that came through security, without double checking to make sure it was actually HER package.

I love the cast in this movie though I feel like aside from Scarlett Johansson I haven't seen anyone else in other movies. I know that Alex D. Linz, who plays the main character, Alex Pruitt, voiced young Tarzan in Tarzan in 1999 for Disney, voiced the young version of the main character of Titan A.E. in 2000 and played Max Keeble in Max Keeble's Big Move in 2001, but otherwise he hasn't been in alot of high profile films and hasn't acted in anything since 2007. Though the actress who plays Alice, one of the criminals, has appeared on various shows that I used to watch, but only after I stopped watching them. There's also a brief cameo by Neil Flynn, who played the Janitor on Scrubs and the father on The Middle, as a police officer the first time Alex calls the cops.

I laughed in alot of places because of how funny this movie is. The thing is though, at least for me, the humour doesn't overshadow the serious moments, like when Alex is legitimately in danger from the four bad guys. Instead, it adds a reprieve from what would otherwise be a pretty scary movie. Compared to some other movies from around this time, like Spawn, and even Star Trek: First Contact, which came out the year before, this movie is pretty tame. Maybe because the comedy is there from the beginning of the franchise. Whatever the case is, it's pretty tame even compared to the first two Home Alone movies.

I did roll my eyes at one part of the movie though. Two parts actually. The first is when Alex is messing with Mrs. Hess by using a universal remote control to turn her TV on and off from across the street, as well as change the channel. Is this something that Alex does all the time? If so, how has she not caught him by now? The other part I rolled my eyes at was when Alex was getting the traps ready at the beginning of the final act, he does it in the middle of the night after his mom and siblings were asleep. How did they not get caught in any of the traps? The entire house is booby trapped, including sections of the house where they would be noticeable to the people who live there and nobody trips them. As I said before you have to suspend your disbelief a certain amount to enjoy this movie, so I didn't think too much about these particular scenes, but I still found it funny even if I did roll my eyes each time.

Home Alone 3 was released on VHS on June 2nd 1998. I got it that same year either for my 12th birthday or for Christmas and I watched it all the time. I knew about this movie before that though. They showed commercials for it on TV on channels that I watched like YTV. I don't remember if they were commercials for the theatrical release or the VHS release, I just remember seeing commercials for the movie that had "Tubthumping" by Chumbawamba playing over it. I can't find that commercial on YouTube so I can't tell you if it was a TV spot for the film's theatrical release in 1997 or it's home video release in 1998. I think we also had the first two movies on VHS as well, but this one was mine.

One thing I found to be really bizarre about this movie is the technology. There were cell phones, laptop computers, and the internet, but they weren't the same as those things are now. Movies and TV shows from this period that showed technology from the late 90s were funny, because laptops never seemed to have to be plugged in ever. Every time we see a laptop it's always just on a table with an endless battery supply. So that was fun to see.

Overall this movie was still as fun as I remember it being from when I watched it as a kid. Before last night I think the last time I watched Home Alone 3 was probably in 2005 or 2006, when the majority of my movie collection was still on VHS. I had a few DVDs, but they were mainly more recent films like Batman Begins, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, and The Dukes of Hazzard (2005) with the exceptions being Batman: The Movie and Spaceballs. 2007 was the latest, because I think it was about 2007 or 2008 when my parents got rid of the majority of our VHS collection in favour of DVD.

If you haven't seen it in a while, or just missed out on it because it didn't have Macaulay Culkin in it, I recommend watching it, because I personally don't think it's as bad as everyone thinks it is, but that's just me though. I have weird tastes in movies. Lol.

Alright everyone, that's going to be it for me for this week. I'll be back on Tuesday for next week's Disney VHS review. I'm also just starting volume 11 of the Sailor Moon manga and the editions I have has twelve volumes, so I should have my review of that coming out sometime next week as well. I'll also have another movie review for you later in the week as well, most likely on Friday as my sister and I getting back to our watch through of season 2 of The Orville next week, after two weeks off for Raya and the Last Dragon and the first episode of Loki. So until then have a great rest of your weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Living with Disabilities: Dating

 Hey everyone! Happy Friday! I hope you all had a good week and are ready for the weekend. Today I have another Living with Disabilities post for you all. This time I'm going to be talking about dating. I was originally going to do this on Valentine's Day, but that didn't happen for obvious reasons. And I decided earlier this week that it had been way too long since I'd done a Living with Disabilities post, that I would do one today since I wouldn't be watching Home Alone 3 (the movie I'm reviewing this week) until tonight, and I wanted to do something besides my Disney VHS review and my Loki review. So here we are, finally talking about dating as someone with disabilities. So let's get right into it.

Dating is probably the most difficult thing that anyone can do. Whether you're disabled or not. I mean we've all done it at one time or another, and we've all had our challenges to face concerning it. Man, woman, boy, girl, gay, straight, bisexual, transgender, pansexual, you name it. Whatever you are, you've all faced some sort of challenges when it comes to dating right? Well, when you're physically disabled AND autistic those throw in a ton more challenges in additions to the ones that everybody has.

I started being interested in girls when I was in grade six, so when I was 11 or 12 (I turned 12 in December, 1998, midway through grade six) and my very first crush was on a girl I was friends with at the time. Her name was Meagan, though, being I was 11 or 12 years old, I didn't tell her or ask her out, or anything like that. Which worked out for the best because a little over a year later, she moved away and aside from a brief time a few years ago when we were friends on Facebook, I haven't talked to her or seen her since she moved a little over 21 years ago. I won't go into too much more detail, but I had crushes on other girls throughout middle school and high school. Here's the thing, none of them reciprocated. Well okay, two did. 

One was Claire and we dated when I was in grade nine for all of five minutes before she changed her mind because she didn't want to put me in a position where she had to eat in front of me when I couldn't eat (I was still being tube fed at that point). Yeah, having no esophagus and being fed through a tube meant I couldn't exactly take a girl out for dinner and participate in the activity of eating said meal. So even though we stayed friends, and she still thought I was cute, dating wasn't a thing we tried again for the remaining three years of our friendship.

The second girl to reciprocate was Keira, but of course I didn't actually know until we were adults that she liked me as more than a friend. I mean, I saw some signs, like her sitting in the guidance counselor's office with me on our first day of grade ten because I needed to get my schedule changed, us spending way too much time together, to the point where everyone at school thought we WERE dating even though we weren't, and my sixteenth birthday party where we sang "Hero" by Enrique Iglesias to each other while we waited for her dad to come pick her up after the party. So what happened? My immaturity, impatience, and most likely my autism did, and so we ended up not dating at all.

I could probably give you all sorts of examples of me getting in my own way when it comes to dating, but I won't. And then of course there were the cases of Alex and Amy having a crush on me when I was in grade seven. I've already talked about those times, so I won't talk about them again. We'll move on though.

When I was in middle school and high school I simply thought that girls didn't like me in that way because of how young we were and me being in my wheelchair almost full time, plus things like being hooked up to a feeding pump 24/7/365 didn't help things. And they were, though many people tried to tell me it was because I liked Star Trek, comic books, Power Rangers, Star Wars, and other "childish" things and if I gave those up I would be dateable. Nice try folks, because even the people who are into those things weren't interested in dating me and it's because I was in a wheelchair (I didn't know about the autism thing when I was in high school). 

When I finally got out of high school, and away from OTHS, I thought dating would get easier, because people were growing up and no longer under the pressures of socializing in high school. I was gonna be going to college, meeting lots of new people, and maybe make friends who would know someone who was single, and might be interested in meeting me. Yeah, I gave up that notion pretty quickly because college just ended up being an extension of high school when it came to social interactions. 

Now, 11 years after I left college, dating is just as difficult as it was when I was in my teens and my twenties. Maybe even more so. Especially now that I know that I'm autistic, and it explains certain behaviours of mine when I was in middle school and high school. Dating is weird though now that I'm 34 years old, almost 35. I mean women are usually able to handle my disabilities at the beginning of our relationship. I've had two girlfriends in the last 11 years, and I went on a few dates with one woman, who actually ended up being a girl I went to school with when I was in kindergarten at OCTC, so that was bizarre. It's just things never really progressed beyond those early stages where we're just becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. 

The thing about dating as an adult is that you have to take certain things into consideration. One of those things is money/finances. Our society runs on money. Especially here in North America, but also pretty much everywhere else in the world. Which means, as a person seeking to be in a romantic relationship with another person that could potentially lead to marriage, or at the very least a situation where you're living together. And so the other person isn't just looking at you to see if you're physically attractive, or if you're a sexually viable partner, because you know that that's going to be a factor that gets brought up eventually, but they're seeing if you're going to be able to contribute financially to the relationship. Especially when it comes time to live together, get married, have children (or pets), and anything else that is part of the domestic experience of human beings. 

As you all know, I'm a physically disabled man, who is autistic, and so I'm on Disability because I can't work a job like other people can. Which means I make very little money. So far me being on Disability has not been good when it comes to being in a romantic relationship. Because it's expensive to live. Groceries are expensive, rent/mortgage is expensive, maintaining a vehicle (something else I can't do is drive), and it doesn't matter if my partner has a good paying job, living is expensive enough that both of us would have to work and be making decent money in order for us to survive together. And I can't do that. My body can't handle working. It barely managed going to school when I was in college.

I'll be honest with you, dating absolutely terrifies me. Even if I find someone who doesn't care that I don't make very much money, live in my parents's house, don't drive, and don't have a job. I'm terrified because social interactions are difficult for me due to me being autistic. I miss social cues, I don't always know how to act around other people, especially if I'm meeting them for the first time, and forming those simple bonds that other people take for granted is nearly impossible. It's why making friends is really hard for me at first. Especially when that friendship ends up not lasting because I inadvertently said something to cause the other person to stop being my friend. Which is why I'm so lucky to have the friends that I have. They put up with me and some of them have put up with me for almost 20 years. Plus I've watched almost every single one of them go through their own relationships over the years and at times it makes me wonder why I would want to deal with that stuff. 

And yes, I know, you're all about to ask me why I don't do online dating right? Well, I have just one reason to not do that. Online dating is not geared towards people like me. In fact it makes all the problems real life dating has about ten times worse than they already are. Swiping left and right, messaging someone, in the hopes that she'll see my message amongst the hundreds of other messages she gets every day, actually reads it, decides she wants to get to know me and messages me back, and that will lead to us meeting in person and end up living happily ever after. And because this hypothetical woman does get messages every day, chances of her not just trashing my message without reading it first is very slim. Also, c'mon guys, it's the internet, which has so much stupidity on it.

One day I would like to have a girlfriend, who loves me regardless of the challenges we will face as an interabled couple, who is maybe okay with taking things slowly, or maybe doesn't mind if we don't live together or don't get married. But, in the meantime, or if it doesn't happen at all, I have friends to hang out with (virtually for the time being) and I couldn't be happier.

Alrighty, I think that's gonna be it for this edition of Living with Disabilities. Like I said, I had originally planned on doing this post back in February for Valentine's Day but I ended up not doing it. But I had promised I'd do it way back when I was doing posts on making friends and on my group of friends near the end of last year. I'll be back tomorrow for my review of Home Alone 3. Until then have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.  

TV Show Review: Loki Episode 1 "Glorious Purpose" (2021)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing okay today. I watched the first episode of Loki on Disney+ with my sister last night, so I'm here to talk about that episode. I'm not going to have spoilers in this review, so don't worry if you haven't watched the episode yet. With that said, let's get into it.

Loki is a series that I wasn't excited for when it was announced. Mainly because I'm just so tired of superhero shows and movies in general at this point. Especially DC and Marvel. Though at this point for Marvel it doesn't matter because people will watch whatever they put out, regardless. Like, it could be the worst Marvel movie or show ever, and people will still watch it. Even after thirteen years, that's still really weird to me, because Marvel wasn't always as well known to the non-comic book reading audience as it is now. Especially when I was growing up in the 90s and 2000s. DC wasn't either to the extent it is now, though people knew who Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman were thanks to the shows that were on in the 50s through to the 80s, not to mention the movies that Superman had been in in the 70s and 80s and the movies that Batman was in in the 80s and 90s. But aside from Spider-Man and the X-Men, very few people knew anything about Marvel.

The MCU is a fickle thing for me as someone who isn't a big fan of Marvel Comics in general, because I loved the early movies from Iron Man in 2008 through to Ant-Man in 2015. I didn't like Age of Ultron as much as I enjoyed The Avengers, and while I enjoyed Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Black Panther, Infinity War, Endgame, and Spider-Man: Far from Home, I didn't like Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Thor: Ragnarok, Ant-Man and the Wasp, or Captain Marvel as much, with Doctor Strange and Thor: Ragnarok being the two I didn't like at all. And it's not that they're bad movies by any means. It's just I personally didn't care about them as much for one reason or another.

So when it came time to announce the MCU post Far from Home, and even a little bit before that, probably around Infinity War or Endgame, I decided I would become more selective when it came to which MCU films and shows I would watch. Especially when it came to the Disney+ shows as I just don't care about the characters being chosen to be the lead character in those shows as much. In fact the only two I actually became excited for were The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (which is one of the best shows I've seen in a long time) and the upcoming series, Hawkeye, because I love Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye and I am really looking forward to seeing how Hailee Steinfeld ends up portraying Kate Bishop, who was the best thing about the first trade paperback volume for Matt Fraction's Hawkeye comic book run. The rest I didn't (and don't for the upcoming ones) care about and have had a very take it or leave it attitude towards. And that includes Loki.

The first episode of the show, titled "Glorious Purpose" is extremely well done, and I had lots of fun watching it, but the time travel aspect is something I'm uncertain about going forward. Look, I'm a fan of DC's Legends of Tomorrow but I'm a fan of that show because of the characters, while most of the weird stuff they do on that show, particularly the time travel aspect are the things I hate the most about that show. So, when the whole conceit of a show starring Tom Hiddleston as the god of mischief, has to be time travel because he was killed at the beginning of Infinity War (okay, so there are slight spoilers for that three year old movie), then to my mind, you're asking the audience to take a leap of faith that the time travel won't immediately make the entire show convoluted due to how loosely these shows and movies tend to play with their own rules when it comes to time travel. Yes, even a show that has been on for decades, like Doctor Who, plays loosely with it's own time travel rules. I'm also not as invested in Loki as a solo character, as I feel his story ended with Infinity War, and anything they do going forward is just filling in blanks that don't necessarily need to be filled in, between movies that came out almost a decade ago. 

Aside from not feeling as invested in this time variant version of Loki, who we were technically introduced to in Endgame when the Avengers went back in time to the first Avengers movie in order to get the Infinity Stone inside the Tesseract, though still liking him, everything I said in the previous paragraph is, in this episode, unfounded. It's well written and I do like the chemistry between Loki, and Owen Wilson's character, Mobius, the Time Variance Authority (TVA) agent who recruits Loki for what they need him for. 

Speaking of Owen Wilson, he actually surprised me in this episode. Mainly because he's never been an actor that I've enjoyed watching as he's known for playing loud and obnoxious. Especially in the 2000s, when every comedy was trying to outdo each other with how raunchy and plotless they could be. But here, I actually enjoyed his character. And of course, Tom Hiddleston is always fun to watch when he's playing Loki. That's the main reason I didn't just dismiss this series and refuse to watch it. And the banter between these two characters are the reason I'm going to watch the next episode or two. But again, if the time travel aspect gets too complicated for me then I'm going to bow out and put this show on the "Not for Me" list.

The thing I don't like about this show is that it took almost the entire episode for Loki to find out why Mobius wanted to recruit him. Instead most of the episode is Mobius psycho-analyzing Loki, which I guess is necessary, but I am so sick of comic book movies and shows doing this. Yes, we know what Loki's insecurities are at this point in the MCU. Multiple characters identified them in Thor, The Avengers, and Thor: The Dark World, so I feel we don't need to rehash them again for this show. If it was Loki from later on in the timeline it would be fine. But it isn't. It's the Loki we've known since 2011. The reason I love Superman & Lois (one of them anyway) is that all it's trying to do is be a Superman show. It wants to be a Superman show, and so it's not spending entire episodes pscyho-analyzing the main character. I just wish Loki wanted to be a straight up, fun, Loki series. Especially since it only has six episodes to tell it's story in, and so I feel like it should've packed a little bit more plot into this episode instead of spending precious moments on establishing what we already know about the character.

Also, the TVA is basically the Time Lords from Doctor Who, the Temporal Investigations Department from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Time Bureau and the Time Masters from DC's Legends of Tomorrow and Time Force from Power Rangers Time Force. Not to mention any other time monitoring organization in any other show or movie about time travel. So it's really nothing new at this point.

I know, I sound like I'm bashing this episode. But that's the thing, I'm not. A good reviewer has to not only praise the thing they're reviewing, but also identify it's flaws and areas where things could be improved. Especially when it comes to entertainment mediums such as movies and TV shows. Otherwise, how else can the show or movie franchise get better? And the same thing goes for reviewers who are reviewing something they don't like. You can't just bash a movie or show, because that doesn't do anything. Instead, if you don't like something, you have to at least try to find something you enjoyed, even if it's the worst movie or TV show ever. Loki is still an interesting character, but you don't immediately need to go into the psycho-analysis of him to make him interesting. Because it just makes some audience members bored. Luckily, there was still alot of fun in this episode, but there wasn't much story being told, which is a problem when the first season of a show only has six episodes. Both seasons of The Mandalorian, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as well as WandaVision were able to do so much in only eight or nine episodes that it was astonishing how much they got done in that small number of episodes. But this show has six episodes to tell it's story, and if they continue not putting very much story in each episode, then by the finale, it's going to feel rushed and compacted because they didn't tell much story.

Overall, I think those of you who are huge MCU fans will enjoy this show if you haven't watched the first episode yet. There's tons to love about it, just keep in mind that not much story is told in this first episode. But otherwise, it was a good episode, and I'm interested to see where things go in the remaining five episodes. 

Alright guys that's gonna be it for me for today. I should be back tomorrow with another post. If not I'll definitely be back on Saturday with this week's movie review. I haven't quite decided what I'm going to watch tomorrow night yet, but whatever it is, I'll be reviewing it on Saturday. So until then have a wonderful afternoon and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Where Does Geek Culture End and Pop Culture Begin?

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing well for a Wednesday. It's not as humid out today as it was yesterday and the day before, but it's still warm out. It'd be nice if we got some rain though. The reason I'm writing this today is because I've observed a trend recently with current movie and TV shows. Particularly with recent superhero/comic book based TV shows and movies, but also with animated movies too. That trend is that certain movies and TV shows get popular really quickly, but never trend on social media. Others trend on social media, but I don't see anyone talking about them. While others don't trend on social media and nobody talks about them at all. Which made me want to ask the question, where does geek culture end and pop culture begin? So let's get into it.

Personally, I see pop culture and geek culture to be two separate things. Occasionally, with things like Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, the MCU, Batman (in the 90s), Disney Animation (in the late 80s and early 90s), and Star Trek (in the 90s), the two crossover and what are primarily considered to be geeky franchises go mainstream and become full blown pop culture phenomenons. But, for the most part they stay relatively separate. Yet, what makes geek culture cross over into pop culture? I mean, Batman was well loved in the 90s, with the animated series, and the movies, plus lots and lots of toys. But, at the same time, in the 90s, Superman died in the comics, Warner Bros. tried developing a movie for him to star in, and he was the star of both a live action show from 1993 until 1997 and an animated series from 1996 until 2000. Not to mention his younger self, Superboy was the star of a live action show that ran from 1988 until 1992. Aside from his death at the hands of Doomsday in 1993, which made international headlines and made non-comic book readers freak out enough to actually go pick up a comic book, by the time I entered public school in 1994, despite Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman being on TV, my classmates were too focused on the upcoming release of Batman Forever, season 2 of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and The Lion King to pay any attention to Superman. Same goes for Spider-Man. Kids were engrossed with the X-Men to pay attention when Spider-Man: The Animated Series debuted on Fox Kids in November of 1994. What does that have to do with the current status of pop culture and geek culture? Easy. It has EVERYTHING to do with it. For example.

 Superman & Lois debuted on February 23rd, 2021, with some attention to it, for being a fun Superman show, something we hadn't had since...well, since ever as Smallville was a Clark Kent show and Lois & Clark focused more on the Lois and Clark side of things rather than the Superman side of things. Which means that we haven't had a straight up Superman show in live action since Adventures of Superman, starring George Reeves, ended in 1956. But that's it. While the show trends on Twitter every week, when it airs, hardly anybody is talking about it. Like I'm not being inundated with spoilers each week on Twitter, Facebook, or even YouTube.

On the flipside of that though, the first episode of Loki dropped on Disney+ this morning. However, it started trending yesterday afternoon because early reviews started coming in. But the show hadn't even dropped yet, and people were already talking about it!!! Which I just don't get. How can anyone be in love with a show or movie when it hadn't even come out yet? Maybe it's because I'm almost 35 years old and while I want to be excited for shows like Loki, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and whatever the next Arrowverse/DC Comics based TV show is going to be, especially since Supergirl is wrapping up, my constant disappointment lately with new shows and movies being not quite for me, aside for certain shows like Superman & Lois, and The Hardy Boys, I'm finding it more and more difficult to get excited about the shows and movies that I should be excited for.

Aaron and I have this argument all the time. Usually when he's telling me about some Science Fiction series or movie that came out in the 70s or 80s that I've never heard of before, but apparently was massively popular at the time it came out. Most of the time I end up thinking that the show or movie in question was liked by a solid, devoted fanbase. But just because something is liked by people, doesn't mean it's massively popular. Every piece of entertainment has it's fans.  For example, Horror is such a huge literary genre thanks to early pioneers like George A. Romero and Stephen King, but it's not appealing to everyone. Hell, I'd say it's not even as accessible to everyone, given how disturbing books and movies in this genre tend to be. 

Going back to superhero and comic book based shows, while WandaVision and Loki were highly anticipated, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier kinda just came and went quietly. It only trended on Twitter once, and that was the week the first episode dropped. And it mostly trended because of the reveal of John Walker in the Captain America suit at the end of the episode. Otherwise, I didn't see very much about it week to week. Which made it safe for me to wait until Friday nights to watch it instead of rushing to put on the episode right after breakfast to avoid all the spoilers like I've been doing with The Mandalorian since 2019.

 Back in 2013 Walt Disney Animation Studios released Frozen. Nobody was prepared for it, nobody had asked for it, but they'd released it because they'd wanted to do a movie based on Hans Christian Anderson's story, The Snow Queen, probably since Walt was alive. The movie blew up. It was bigger than any of the animated movies that Disney had put out in the early to mid-90s. It was bigger than Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King combined. And not only was it this huge pop culture phenomenon that put Disney Animation back in the spotlight, where it hadn't really been since the 90s, but it stayed a pop culture phenomenon until 2016 at the latest. Long after it's debut on DVD and Blu-ray.

Fast forward nearly a decade to this year when Raya and the Last Dragon came out back in March. It came and went with so little fanfare. Even when it went into general release on Disney+ last week, it came and went very quickly. As you know from my review of the movie, I loved it. But outside of the Animation fan community, it garnered very little attention in pop culture. Is it because it wasn't a Disney musical like Frozen is, and focused more on adventure, character development and world building much like The Rescuers, The Rescuers Down Under, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, and Big Hero 6 did? Or is it because a number of animated movies came out in March and people just didn't want to pay an extra $30 for the Premier Access of the movie, especially in countries where movie theatres still aren't open yet? There's no real way of knowing to be honest. I will say that people seem to think that Raya and the Last Dragon was a failure because it wasn't popular like Frozen or any of the movies from the early to mid-90s. That's simply isn't the case, I don't think. And it certainly isn't the case in Disney's eyes. Which leads me to the wildest speculation.

Do box office numbers and ratings not matter anymore when it comes to how popular a TV show or movie is? Is trending on social media more important? As I've said in this post already, it seems like the more often a movie or show is trending on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, the more popular it is right? Yes and no. I mean in terms of movies, they have to make money regardless of how much people like them, so how they make money isn't as important, especially in this day and age, as long as they make money.

So to get back to the question that is the title of this post, where does geek culture end and pop culture begin? Honestly, there isn't really a dividing line, because sometimes geek culture can become pop culture, depending on how well it's received by audiences. Also, it can be a subjective thing too, because one person isn't necessarily going to like what other people like, and sometimes someone will like a movie or show or comic or book or whatever it is that other people don't like. So it really just depends on a person's individual tastes. 

I think that's going to be it for me for now. I'll be back tomorrow with my review of the first episode of Loki. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

The History of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment: The Adventures of Chip 'n' Dale (1980)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So today I'm going to be officially starting my long term History of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment review/overview series where each week, in the order the tapes, DVDs, and Blu-rays were released in, I'll be taking a look at a Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (previously known as Walt Disney Home Video and Walt Disney Home Entertainment) release that I have in my collection. I'm able to do this because thanks to online friends, I have digitized copies of some of these tapes, DVDs, and Blu-rays, while having the actual physical copies of the rest of them. My focus will be on the openings, bonus features occasionally, and the history of Disney releasing movies and shows on home media formats. I'm also going to give short opinions on each movie, which means I'll be repeating myself in several posts because I have multiple releases of the same movies. So let's get into it with the only pre-1984 Neon Mickey tape that I have, The Adventures of Chip 'n' Dale!

 As I said in my Neon Mickey VHS overview Disney began releasing cartoon shorts and live action movies on home video in 1978 with the MCA-Discovision Laserdisc releases. However, beginning in 1980 with the Fotomat collaboration, they began releasing movies and cartoons on VHS and Betamax. Among the thirteen titles planned for the Fotomat collaborative release line, The Adventures of Chip 'n' Dale was released on VHS on March 4th, 1980, alongside Pete's Dragon, The Black Hole, The Love Bug, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Case wise, there's no difference between tapes released through Fotomat and tapes released elsewhere. It's simply that Fotomat was the first place where you could rent tapes from. That's it. The case for The Adventures of Chip 'n' Dale is exactly how I described the cases in my Neon Mickey VHS overview. A white clamshell, with the Sorcerer Mickey Walt Disney Home Video logo at the top with orange and red bars separating the logo from the release's title. What's odd about the piece of animation they used for the picture, Chip and Dale are in their original appearances from the 1943 cartoon short, Private Pluto where they look more like the animals in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Which is interesting because I didn't actually know that about them.

The tape's opening is interesting, because while the front cover says Walt Disney Home Video at the top, the Neon Mickey logo actually says Walt Disney Home Entertainment, as they were still using the original 1978 Neon Mickey logo, rather than the one used from 1981 until late 1986. And I say late 1986, because all four 1986 VHS releases for the Winnie the Pooh cartoon featurettes have the Neon Mickey logo in the openings for the tapes, but the first Disney Sing-Along Songs tape, Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah has the red Sorcerer Mickey Walt Disney Home Video logo at the beginning of it, which I'll talk about more when I get to those tapes in a few weeks. 

So The Adventures of Chip 'n' Dale is actually an episode of the old Disneyland TV series that aired in 1959 and it's actually pretty good. The cartoons that are featured in this program are ones I've never seen before, as I didn't watch a whole lot of cartoons that had Chip and Dale in them as the main characters. I mostly saw them in Christmas specials and short cartoons with Donald Duck, much as they are in the three cartoons that Donald is in on this tape. They're funny though. And they aren't like Disney funny either. They're more Looney Tunes funny with the physical gags and the Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner type humour. I'm not usually a physical humour guy outside of the Looney Tunes and occasionally the Three Stooges, but I found these cartoons to be really funny. Maybe it's just from the shock of watching Chip and Dale take down Pete with his own weapons and cooking items in a Tex Avery/Looney Tunes style. I had a good time with this tape.

1980 was an interesting year for Disney. They hadn't released an animated movie since The Rescuers and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh had been released in 1977, but the animators were in the middle of making The Fox and the Hound, and both theme parks and the live action movies were still doing relatively well. I say relatively well because the live action movies were mostly comedies they could just crank out one after another with smaller budgets than movies like The Black Hole required. Ron W. Miller, the son-in-law of Walt Disney, was the biggest advocate for the home video market at Disney. At least for the animated classics such as Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, and Pinocchio. Though he doesn't seem to be the originator since he was still working on the movie side of things as a producer, and wouldn't be in a position of power at Disney until he became the president of the studio in 1980, two years after Disney made their deal with MCA Discovision to start releasing movies on Laserdisc effectively starting Walt Disney Home Video.

Overall this was a fun tape to watch and a great start to the series. Unlike with my other reviews, At the end of each review I'll be telling you what the next release I'm going to be talking about will be, because I am going in chronological order for each release. This way I'll be recording a more comprehensive history of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment through all of it's stages, as well as getting into my personal history with the tapes I have that I had or rented when I was a kid. I promise, it'll be fun. So next week I'll be talking about Volume 4 in the Walt Disney Cartoon Classics series from 1983, Sport Goofy.

That is going to be it for me for today, but I'll be back on Thursday for my review of the first episode of Loki, which drops tomorrow. My sister and I are watching it tomorrow night, so that should be fun. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.  

Video Game Memories: Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990)

 Hey guys! How were your weekends? Mine was good. Actually, it was pretty quiet. Today I'm finally going to be talking about Super Mario Bros. 3, the final Mario game released for the NES back in 1988 in Japan, 1990 in North America, and 1991 in Europe. So let's get right into it.

After the interesting way they went with Super Mario Bros. 2 Nintendo decided to go with a more traditional Mario game for Super Mario Bros. 3. They didn't just make another harder version of Super Mario Bros. like they had with The Lost Levels. Instead they opened up the world alot more and actually had another quest for the majority of the game, instead of just Bowser kidnapping Princess Toadstool. He still did that, but not until the end of the game when you're about to hit the final world. Instead you have to save the seven kingdoms from Bowser's kids (pre-Bowser Jr. of course) because each kid put a spell on each king using an airship to go from place to place.

 Like the previous three Mario games that I've talked about, I watched family members play Super Mario Bros. 3 on Super Mario All-Stars for the Super Nintendo when I was a kid. However, this is actually the only other game in the original Super Mario Bros. series that I also got to play on the NES as well, besides the original game. I got to play the original version of Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES one time when I was in the hospital. I think it was sometime in 1996 or 1997 when I was admitted for something. In addition to getting to play Super Mario 64 on the then brand new Nintendo 64 console, I also got to play The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES, AND I also got to play Star Fox on the Super Nintendo as well. I think this is the game that my mom spent the most time on when I was growing up. Super Mario Bros. was a pretty quick game to get through, even if you didn't beat it in one sitting, The Lost Levels was so hard that it was impossible to beat, and Super Mario Bros. 2 almost doesn't feel like a Mario game. Super Mario Bros. 3 had so much more to do in the game. I mean you had eight maps to complete, with numerous levels on each map, plus a fortress, and the castle at the end. So it's a much longer game than the original Super Mario Bros. is.

If I have to be honest, Super Mario Bros. 3 isn't my favourite Mario game for the Super Nintendo. Maybe it's because I didn't play Super Mario Bros. 3 as often as my mom and siblings did, but I actually prefer Super Mario World over Super Mario Bros. 3. However, I have to say I prefer the score for Super Mario Bros. 3 more than the score for Super Mario World. I think it's because there's a wider variety of music for this game than for Super Mario World, both for the individual levels and the overworlds (the maps) and the music also doesn't sound as repetitive.

And while you have way more power-ups in Super Mario Bros. 3, I find Super Mario World to be visually more pleasing. Mainly because there's alot going on on the screen in Super Mario Bros. 3 with the power bar/inventory bar at the bottom of the screen. It's still a really good game, and is one of my favourite games in the Mario franchise, along with Super Mario World and Super Mario 64. I just prefer Super Mario World over it. In other words I just really wanna talk about Super Mario World. Lol.

Alrighty I think that's gonna be it for me for today. I will be back tomorrow for the first installment in my Disney VHS overview/review series that I was supposed to start last week, but didn't because I actually thought I was going to do VHS Reviews instead. But no, there are so many Disney VHS tapes that I want to talk about in more detail than I did in my History of Disney Movies on Home Video overview series that that's what I want to focus on. I'm going in the order in which each tape (and later DVD and Blu-ray) was released in, so tomorrow we'll be going all the way back to 1981 to talk about The Adventures of Chip 'n' Dale. And then on Thursday I'll be reviewing the first episode of Loki which drops on Wednesday. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Movie Review: Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

 Hey everyone! How's everybody doing today? I'm doing well. It's been a quiet day so far. So last night instead of watching The Orville this week, my sister and I watched Raya and the Last Dragon, the latest movie from Walt Disney Animation Studios. Which means I'm now writing this so I can talk about it a bit. I'm not including any spoilers into this review, because I hope you'll watch it for yourselves if you haven't already done so. So let's get into it.

As you probably know from the post I did about the shows, movies and books that I was looking forward to in 2021, I've been extremely excited for this movie to come out. Especially once I saw the trailer during the night of the Disney Investors' Day announcements. There was just something about the movie's concept that drew me in in a way many Disney animated movies since Zootopia didn't until I actually see them. But this drew me in. I was not prepared for this movie when my sister and I watched it last night. The trailer made it look good, but how good it was I was not prepared for.

Since it appeared on Disney+ outside of Premier Access, I've seen many people compare it to the Nickelodeon animated shows Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. While there are some elements in this movie that are similar to those shows, especially with Raya resembling a younger version of Korra from The Legend of Korra and her companion, Tuk Tuk playing the same role as Appa from The Last Airbender, my sister also saw some resemblance to some Anime that she'd seen as well. I agreed with her to a degree because of the film's Eastern influences on it's story, characters and even animation style. 

One of the things that I like about this movie is that it reminds me of the adventure type Disney animated movies The Rescuers, The Rescuers Down Under, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, and Big Hero 6 (another movie that has a more Eastern influence on it). There's nothing wrong with the animated musicals like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Tangled, and Frozen (among many others) or DreamWorks type comedies like The Emperor's New Groove, Lilo & Stitch, and Wreck-It Ralph, but the 2010s were so full of them that it was refreshing to have a pure adventure movie with real stakes and actual consequences.

Raya herself is a brilliant character. While she's officially a Disney princess, she feels more like an ordinary person who makes mistakes, and then eventually learns from those mistakes. Afterall, she's the reason everything happened the way they did at the beginning of the movie and so the rest of the movie is her trying to atone for her mistakes and seek misguided revenge on Namaari. Which is what makes her so relatable. Interestingly enough, Kelly Marie Tran wasn't Disney's original choice to voice Raya. Originally, she was going to be voiced by Cassie Steele, who played Manny Santos on Degrassi: The Next Generation from 2001-2010. But there was a shift in the character on the creative side so she was replaced by Kelly Marie Tran.

The only other cast members I'm even vaguely familiar with are Daniel Dae Kim (Chief Benja, Raya's father), Benedict Wong (Tong), Sandra Oh (Virana, Namaari's mom), and Alan Tudyk (Tuk Tuk). I'm not current on pop music so I'm not familiar with Awkwafina (Sisu the Dragon), and the rest of the cast is unknown to me due to not having seen anything else they're in, or in the case of Gemma Chan (Namaari), not knowing her by sight from Captain Marvel. The entire cast is phenomenal though.

I found the opening to be a bit slow, but that's okay because this isn't really a fast paced movie and you needed that opening narration to understand the state of the world at the beginning of the movie. Much like how you need the opening narration in the first episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender to understand what the show is about.

The animation in this movie is absolutely gorgeous. While we were watching it last night, my sister and I commented on how far Disney has come in it's 3-D animation style since the 2000s when they released their first 3-D animated features, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, and Bolt. Even since Toy Story came out in 1995, CG animation has become more refined. I was drawn in by the visuals as much as I was drawn in by the story and the characters.

Overall Raya and the Last Dragon is an amazing movie. It's interesting, it's chilling in places, and the characters are fantastic. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly HIGHLY recommend you do so ASAP. Especially if you're into Anime. But even if you're not, it's a movie that surprised me from start to finish. I expected to like it, but I wasn't expecting to be as blown away by it as I was blown away by Soul. Though Soul blew away in a very different manner than Raya and the Last Dragon did.

And that my friends is it for me for this week. But I'll be back next week with my thoughts on the first episode of Loki which drops on Wednesday. My sister and I are going to watch the episode on Wednesday night so that review will be up sometime on Thursday. I'm also going to have a movie review going up as well, though I'm not entirely sure what movie I'll be reviewing yet. So until then have a great rest of your weekend and I will talk to you all soon. Take care.