In Trumpland, “Independence” is something to engrave on a wall, not actually allow for anyone.
Stars and Stripes is a semi-independent newspaper published for US military personnel by an independent (by statute) editorial board.
So, of course, Hegseth needs remove any of those “independent” parts of it. He’s mandated it get rid of “woke distractions” to military personnel, and instread focus on “warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability, and ALL THINGS MILITARY.”
Pentagon taking over Stars and Stripes to eliminate ‘woke distractions’
The Pentagon announced Thursday it would take editorial control of independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes to refocus coverage on “warfighting” and remove “woke distractions.”
What sort of “woke” things has Stars and Stripes been doing? Apparently, for Hegseth, “woke” means “repurposed DC gossip columns [and] Associated Press reprints.”
‘Stars and Stripes’ Responds to Pentagon Targeting ‘Woke’ Independent News
The Pentagon’s directive to refocus “Stars and Stripes” on warfighter messaging has triggered alarms across newsrooms and press freedom groups, raising questions about whether the military’s historic newspaper can remain editorially independent.
S&S has long served as a news channel for the US military, especially those serving overseas. Its mission is laid out simply:
Stars and Stripes provides independent news and information to the U.S. military community, including active-duty servicemembers, DoD civilians, veterans, contractors, and their families. Unique among Department of Defense authorized news outlets, Stars and Stripes is governed by the principles of the First Amendment.
S&S also notes:
Stars and Stripes is a service of the Defense Media Activity (DMA); the views and opinions expressed do not reflect the views of the Department of Defense, the military services or DMA. The Pentagon funding that makes up roughly half of Stars and Stripes’ annual budget is primarily used to print and distribute the newspaper to troops scattered across the globe, including in warzones. The remainder of the newspaper’s funding comes from advertising and subscriptions. Stars and Stripes is editorially independent of interference from outside its own editorial chain-of-command. It provides commercially available U.S. and world news and objective staff-produced stories relevant to the military community in a balanced, fair, and accurate manner. By keeping its audience informed, Stars and Stripes enhances military readiness and better enables U.S. military personnel and their families stationed overseas to exercise their responsibilities of citizenship.
Well, that sounds sketchy! We cannot have military personnel deciding for themselves how to “exercise their responsibilities of citizenship,” can we?
So what sort of terrible “woke” things have they been reporting on to give Hegseth a hissy-fit? Well, here are the headlines I just copied down from its front page:
Military now requires doctors to offer chaperone for sensitive medical exams
Polar Star icebreaker marks 50 years in Coast Guard service
Bill designates site for “Rosie the Riveter” memorial in the nation’s capital
Treasury and IRS say :”warrior dividend” not taxable
New Air Force helicopter flies its first ICBM security mission
VA awards disability benefits using criteria from 80 years ago, federal watchdog finds
Congress calls for expanded multilateral defense ties across Indo-Pacific
DOD commissaries expand home delivery program in 70 locations stateside
Coast Guard acting commandant Lunday officially installed in service’s top job
Navy veterans unveil monument to Filipino-American sailors on former US base
Kurdish-led forces to withdraw from contested area in Syria after US military visit
Marine Corps general tapped to lead SOUTHCOM grilled over presence in region
Navy airlifts mariner showing signs of heart attack to hospital on Guam
Those all sound like actual news, things that have happened, that might well be of interest to folk serving in the armed forces. And stories that wouldn’t necessarily show up in civilian news feeds.
But I guess there’s not enough spurting blood and roaring rockets and paeans of praise for the DefenseWAR!! Department leadership, or something showing up there. Not in Hegseth’s eyes. If his myrmidons are not being properly propagandized with Pentagon-mandated WARFIGHTER! news items, 24×7, there’s every chance they might have (or even express) an opinion that varies from his.
Pentagon says it will ‘refocus’ Stars and Stripes content
The Pentagon suggested it would take over editorial decision making for Stars and Stripes, which has long retained independence under a congressional mandate.
Stars and Stripes, which is dedicated to serving U.S. government personnel overseas, seeks to emulate the best practices of commercial news organizations in the United States. It is governed by Department of Defense Directive 5122.11. The directive states, among other key provisions, that “there shall be a free flow of news and information to its readership without news management or censorship.”
As noted, Congress mandated in the 1990s that S&S’s editorial board should be independent of the Pentagon, even while much of its personnel and budget come from there. But, as we have seen, “Independent” is as big a taboo word for the Trump Regime as “Inclusion” — anything that shows, even by law, any measure of independence from the Unitary Executive must be crushed and brought into line, filled with right-thinking ideologues and toadies, and made one more weapon in the arsenal of the Regime.
And, so far at least, legal challenges to Presidential Power have largely shown that the Sun King has a majority of supporters on the Supreme Court he has himself largely created ready to back whatever it is he wants to do — laws or principle be damned.
It’s remarkable how big Dilbert’s creator was in my work environment. Until he wasn’t.
I was as big a Dilbert fanboy as anyone else working in white collar work (esp. tech) in the 90s and 00s. I had the wall calendars, the comic-a-day calendars, the collections … I had Dilberts posted outside my office door or my cube wall … I even incorporated Dilbert comics into (yes I feel the irony) PowerPoint presentations, always garnering laughter from the audience. It was all jolly, slightly-transgressive-toward-management fun.
Until it stopped being that.
Scott Adams, whose comic strip ‘Dilbert’ ridiculed white-collar office life, dies at 68
Adams veering off to the zany Right (or becoming more public about it, one way or the other), made it all less fun, and invited reviewing some of those comics that had seemed just standard office humor when originally published.
But even where the humor was still funny, Adams became one of those folk for whom I chose not to spend my money any more. He was free to draw and write about whatever he wanted — but I didn’t have to buy it.
I do still have a lot of the older Dilberts saved in the Picture folder bowels of my computer, though.
While I found Adams’ political and social views increasingly repellent, I would never wish death from cancer on anyone, and I am sorry that he suffered what he did.
I’d love to look ahead a few decades (for more reasons than one) and see what Adams’ legacy is. Even now, it’s hard to think of any retrospective on office life in the 90s-00s that doesn’t have Dilbert as a touchstone for white collar concerns and frustrations of that period.
In any case, I’m sorry things went so wrong for him (by his own doing, to be sure), and that his life ended so poorly. I offer up my thanks, though, for all the chuckles he gave me during his career. RIP.
It’s been six years since the last Avengers flick. Can Marvel bring back that magic?
I will be the first to admit that I am unreasonably in love with the MCU. As a long-time comic book collector, I just get a huge kick out of seeing Marvel characters (in one form or another) up on the big screen, and while there have been ups and downs in the franchise, even in the worst I usually find something nice to say.
That said, regarding the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday film coming out next Christmas:
I am really excited.
I am really worried.
The excitement part is just because, even if it is a dud, I expect to enjoy bits of it to make it worth my while (and an extortionate amount of money at the box office).
The worried part is is more complicated.
First, the MCU has been seriously adrift since the Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame duo. Not that I haven’t enjoyed the stuff coming out (well … I gotta admit that Secret Invasion was hard to like, for a lot of reasons).
Marvel spent a lot of time, and a lot of movies, building up an interlocking cast of characters against the menace of Thanos, and with sub-build-ups about the Avengers forming and the Infinity Stones Gems. One thing built on another; even where movies were a step or two askew from others, the post-credits scene would often build up that little tie-in.
By the time we got Infinity War and Endgame, everyone (in the MCU and the viewing audience) knew who everyone was, all the characters had had some solid-crossover work between them, and the villain and his glowing MacGuffin was ready for the big reveal.
Even with all of that, that duology was sort of a cast of hundreds payoff for everything that barely fit the bounds of the movies. Even with all that planning and groundwork, it verged on being just plain old too big.
What’s happened since then? A scatter-shot of movies and TV series of various popularities and viewership. Concepts left, right, and center. Very little follow-up of new (or newish) characters showing up elsewhere.
Most of all, the early work to tee up Kang the Conqueror as, a la Thanos, the BBEG for the next phase or three got blown out of the water by (a) the actor’s out-of-movie actions, and (b) not a lot of enthusiasm for the character or his hi-jinx in the couple of places (Loki 2, Ant-Man 3) we actually got to see him (or a version of him).
Marvel universe drops Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror after conviction. Now what?
Jonathan Majors had two movies in the balance with Marvel, Disney before the studios dropped him Monday after his conviction for assault, harassment.
Kang getting kicked to the curb not only robbed the MCU of something to get excited about, or focus the storylines on (there was no equivalent of the Infinity Gems to play with), but it knocked a lot of planned stories out as well, requiring rewriting, replotting, rejiggering to deal with no BBEG yet identified. All the teeing To the extent that was tied to the creative and box office difficulties of the MCU for the past few years, we also got a lot of planned movies and shows canceled, poking further holes into the MCU fabric.
It took Marvel too long to decide the next big villain would instead be Doctor Doom — and, once that was announced a Comic-Con or three ago, to actually get him some action in one (1) movie, and that only mid-credits.
Bottom line, we’ve got a lot of movies and TV shows with very little tying them together and, I suspect, very few people (aside from, ahem) who have seen and/or appreciated all of them. We have a villain who’s largely a blank figure (sure, we didn’t know of Thanos’ real motivations, but at least we’d seen his actions behind the scenes before that). And we have a movie that looks like it’s going to have everyone and their sister and brother into it, both ostensibly retired heroes / characters (Thor, Captain America, Loki, and, for that matter, Robert Downey, Jr), ones waiting in the wings from other studios (we’ve finally gotten the FF, and word has it we’ll finally be getting something of the X-Men, again, using previously-used actors), and ones that we’ve gotten maybe one or two looks at in various properties but whose actual tying together into something that looks like “The Avengers” really hasn’t happened yet.
(Yes, Thunderbolts* gave us a (second) Avengers team — but, for all I really enjoyed that installment, it was made up of mostly 2nd tier characters (kind of the point) and didn’t do well in the Box Office.)
The feel I get of all of this, and the rush to get Avengers: Doomsday out, is a sense of desperation, a whiff of “We gotta do something really big that will really, truly, profoundly guaranteed to be a box office smash.” And so Feige and company are throwing every plate of spaghetti they have (including some they had said had been thrown out) at the wall to see if enough of it will stick.
I just don’t see how we’re going to get everyone introduced (to the audience and each other), working together, with an appropriate menace ready to be taken down, given the size of the cast and the lack of groundwork, over the course of a single film. But that seems to be what Marvel+Disney are shooting for.
This isn’t the first Avengers film. We’re not talking 6 heroes, some of them who’d helmed their own films, being pulled together against a known bad guy. This is kind of the opposite.
So, yeah, I’m worried. Especially since, less than a year before show time, we’re still hearing credible rumors about additional character being pulled into the mess.
New AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY Rumor Claims Fans Will See Big Screen Debut of a Fan Favorite Disney+ Series Character — GeekTyrant
Avengers: Doomsday ’s sprawling cast list has been mostly revealed, with fans excited to see the return of ...
I really want this to be not just a movie I enjoy, but something that sort of justifies what we’ve gotten from Marvel for the past six years. Something that shows coherency of both plot and plan. Something I’m not the only one to enjoy.
Losing money is “immoral”! Reports that we are losing money any more are wrong!
It’s true! Or at least that’s what the current head of the organization, Ric Grenell, is adamant about.
‘We cannot have art institutions that lose money’: Grenell defends Kennedy Center takeover
The newly-renamed Trump-Kennedy Center is facing canceled performances and plummeting ticket sales. Amna Nawaz discussed the turmoil with Richard Grenell, the man President Trump handpicked to lead the institution.
Grenell says that the Kennedy Center was losing money before, and That Is A Bad Thing. But now, despite plummeting ticket sales (but, Grenell assures us! lots of Big Donors donating bigly), the Trump-Kennedy Center is completely profitable, which is the important thing, because profit!
Surely that’s what was intended by Congress for the Kennedy Center. It’s right there in its Mission Statement, right?
As America’s performing arts center, and a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy, we are a leader for the arts across the United States and around the world, connecting the greatest living artists with audiences of every stripe, no matter their background. We welcome all Americans and creators and visitors from across the globe to discover, experience, learn about, be inspired by, and engage with the arts.
Oh, but there’s a Vision Statement where we will see that making money is the bestest vision there is, right?
We are the nation’s beacon for the performing arts, engaging artists and audiences around the world to share, inspire, and celebrate the cultural heritage by which a great society is defined and remembered.
Okay, then their Value statement surely shows how Value = Cash Value, right?
The work of the Kennedy Center has been built upon three pillars:
Presenting, producing, and curating world-class art;
Offering powerful education to people of all ages, everywhere; and
Fulfilling our mandate as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy.
(And, for at least the next three years, a living memorial to President Donald J. Trump, law suits notwithstanding.)
Surely nothing with Trump’s name on it can lose money!
I don’t imagine the Center’s Social Credo is any use here …
As the Nation’s Cultural Center, the Kennedy Center’s objective is to invite art into the lives of all Americans and ensure it represents the cultural diversity of America.
Oh, no! They used the D word! Oh, the shame!
Note: I fully expect all of this to get scrubbed into something more Patriotic and Populist and White and Profit-Seeking as soon as they figure out what the new URL is going to be (as far as I can see, the main change is to add “Trump” to the web page header). That said, I’m also shocked that this little bit hasn’t been redacted with a hatchet:
Across all that we do, the Kennedy Center strives to cultivate a culture of inclusiveness, in which our art and our audiences are as rich, diverse, and ever-changing as America itself.
But America can never change! America is the Greatest! Also, they used the I word and the D word! Though they included the word “rich” so that’s allowed.
Anyway, nowhere in any of that is terminology about “fiscal responsibility” or “breaking even” or “taking care of the budget deficit caused by all those irresponsible tax cuts.”
There is a “Fast Fact” about how the Center’s budget works:
The Kennedy Center’s operating budget is composed primarily of ticket revenue and private philanthropy. As a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy, the Kennedy Center receives an annual federal appropriation for capital repairs and maintenance of its facilities.
So all the blurring of budget lines between “Ew, nobody likes that music!” and “Look how bad the maintenance is!” makes no sense; the former is about ticket sales (if they were actually insufficient) and donors (which Grenell seems to think are now flocking to the Center), and the latter about Congress allocating sufficient funds to keep the place up. That breakout is clear when you look at the FY26 budget request, which only deals with O&M costs.
The Trump-Kennedy Center Backfired. Ric Grenell Is Gaslighting Everyone
Artists are canceling shows after Trump’s name went on the Kennedy Center. Ric Grenell denies the link and threatens critics to silence dissent.
Grennell spent his time in the PBS News Hour interview basically saying:
The multiple stories that ticket sales are down are not true. Or at least the specifics are not true; he didn’t specify.
There are Lots of Big Donors Donating Bigly.
PBS is biased and losing money itself, nyah!
Making money is the important thing here. Losing money is “immoral.”
Inspiring words, indeed. Clearly the US is on its way to being a leader in the creative arts, just as it is becoming a leader in civil liberties and making the world a safer, freer place.
The US is at the mercy of an immature, asocial, egotistical, angry, ruthless being of terrifying power.
Charlie X
In the first-season Star Trek (TOS) episode “Charlie X,” the Enterprise takes onboard a castaway teenager, Charlie Evans (played with lovely creepiness by Robert Walker, Jr). Long story short, it turns out the disembodied-nigh-god inhabitants of the planet he’d been marooned on as an infant had given him nigh-god powers over reality to help him survive — powers that, in the hands of an unsocialized, hormone-ridden, stereotypical teenager makes him an existential menace.
And, as that is becoming clearer — that Charlie can and will, with the power of his mind, control the ship, make things and people disappear (or change them into iguanas, or steal their faces), break bones, compel people to speak or be silent — Spock says to Kirk the line in the title of this post.
The US is in a Charlie X moment.
We have an elected president who does pretty much whatever he wants. If he has the people willing to do it, it gets done. If they aren’t willing, he fires them until he gets some who are. Law? He’s the president — law is something he uses as a weapon, not is hampered by as a restriction.
When you’re nigh-omnipotent, who can tell you no?
Ego-driven monuments and building renamings? Sure.
Enrich himself, his companies, his family? Naturally!
Lie, hyperbolize, exaggerate, without any apparent sense of shame, double down when corrected, and never, ever, admit you were incorrect? Sounds like a plan!
Militarize law and immigration enforcement? Sounds fun! Shit on international allies? Why not?
Throw decorum, tradition, civility, politeness, and norms out the window as irrelevant wussiness that keep him from doing whatever he wants to do? Tradition and politeness are for wussies!
Roll back a century of social and legal advancement, and securing of civil rights, by anyone who’s not a white Christian man? Hold my nuggets …
Look to fire anyone he doesn’t like, whether he has authority or not, and disassemble the civil service that was put in to keep government from operating on the spoils system? Gilded Age, baby!
Engage in wide-spread wielding of the Justice Department, et al., as weapons of vengeance? Damn straight.
Call for the imprisonment, banishment, or execution of his political enemies? Naturally!
Pander to any conservative wish list that comes from a person or group who sufficiently kow-tows and/or donates? Outstanding!
Declare anyone, or anywhere, he wants as “terrorists” or a “terrorist organization,” which he can then use his expansive “emergency” powers (granted to the President by successive generations of Congress) to outlaw, imprison, shoot, or bomb?
Who’s gonna stop me?
Ultimately, that’s Charlie X’s line — once he learns that he doesn’t have to follow the rules, that he doesn’t have to put up with Kirk’s advice, then orders. Who can stop him?
Who going to stop our nigh-omnipotent adolescent?
Not the Courts — not, ultimately, when he’s got a hand-picked Supreme Court majority that believes that the Executive gets to execute pretty much anything it wants, and that stare decisis is for suckers.
Not Congress — his GOP allies are either wildly enthused about how their ideological G-spots are being scratched, or else terrified of being primaried by his MAGA machine and its multi-billionaire backers. The only pushback from them has come where he’s bumped against their prerogatives, and even there it’s been hit or miss.
His Democratic opponents, meanwhile seem to feel that if they squawk nicely-worded protests and make pro forma (but always fragile) moves to provide a bit of publicity-worthy friction to his advance — well, that’s all they can be expected to do, amirite?
Did I mention Charlie doesn’t have good boundary awareness with women?
Trump’s often compared to a senile old man, and anyone who claims to not see his cognitive decline is, at the most charitable, simply not looking / wishfully thinking. But the comparison to an adolescent seems also compelling. An adolescent who has always lived a life of entitled privilege. An adolescent who has always bought or legally evaded any significant consequences to his actions, from stiffing contractors to fomenting mob violence. An adolescent raised by an abusive father to never apologize, never compromise, always go for the throat, that losers are anyone who doesn’t win everything, and losers should be curb-stomped to make sure they learn their lesson. An adolescent raised in “the power of positive thinking” — that you can make your own reality, your own truth, if you stick by it, deny anything that denies it, double down on it when in trouble, and never, ever, admit you were wrong.
An adolescent who is now arguably the most powerful person on earth, surrounded by minions who eagerly do whatever he wants and who stroke his ego that anything he wants is the right thing to do, while also surrounded by ego-stroking villains who see his willfulness and willingness to do whatever he wants can be steered to their own ideological ends, leaving him to think it was all his own idea.
And then, today …
And today he announced that he’d (a) kidnapped the leader of a foreign nation, and his wife, to be shipped back to America for a “fair” trial (note the word “fair” was never actually used; “show” may be a better word), and (b) meanwhile, the US would be running the country, with “boots on the ground,” so as to (c) build a new, democratic, and American-allied country, because that always works and was never criticized or run against by the guy now doing it, and (d) by the way, it’s open season for American (with priority) oil companies to move in and take over the petroleum resources there.
As a bonus, our Sect’y of State was out there winning hearts and minds telling the leadership of Cuba that they might be next.
Don’t be me wrong — Maduro is a piece of work. He’s a petty dictator who’s relished using American hostility as a way to leverage dictatorial power in his own country, and who’s arguably at best turned a blind eye to narcotics cartels shipping goods to a (ever-willing-to-consume) US. If he’d fallen over dead with a brain aneurism, I wouldn’t be mourning his passage.
This whole thing is quite different.
The US President, after saber-rattling and threats for quite a long time, decided to simply declare drug smugglers as an invading military force, and therefore subject to military force in return. Not surprisingly, the US Navy and Air Force and whomever else he wanted to show off were pretty effective at blowing up (what he said, with no evidence given, how dare you question his integrity?) narcotics boats. But not so effective that they couldn’t commit a few text book war crimes — denied, then angrily quasi-justified, then just handwaved off.
That got enough applause (or acquiescence) from the usual suspects to move on to declaring a shipping embargo on Venezuela. It wasn’t all that well-enforced, I’ve seen reported, but it did make for some big publicity moments, which was even more important to show Trump how big and powerful he was.
Charlie works his angry magic
But no immediate craven surrender by Maduro was forthcoming, and our adolescent is an impatient adolescent — and one that really gets off on compensating for something by the size of his military. This is the guy who was jealous of all those military parades in other countries, so got one for his birthday. This is the guy who wants everyone to be cowed by his hand-designed battleships. This is the guy who’s happy to throw his “America First” isolationist campaign principles out the window in order to, yes, potentially start a foreign war (It’s not foreign, its on a continent named after our country!) with boots on the ground (such big boots! shoot to kill!) to do some hopefully-favorable nation-building (after attacking the very of nation-building for the last decade or more) (but I can do it right!).
I mean, this comes across as someone sending Trump an article buttonholing Trump at a Mar-a-Lago party and waxing lyrical about how in the Gilded Golden Age* the US used to invade Latin American countries all the time, overthrowing governments to put in friendly puppets, and installing American companies to extract everything they could. *Though not just in the 19th or early 20th Century, of course.
Of course, that’s why so many people in Latin America still think the US is an imperialistic power, driven by money and ego to attack them as it pleases. That’s why a lot of countries, no matter how much we have, at times, helped them, mistrust at best and hate at worst the US. And Trump seems determined to prove them right — indeed, to double down by not only doing this, but making it clear he has the personal right to do it because he can.
When in doubt, change reality to suit yourself.
And for all the people warning about how this will drag the US’ reputation and any moral high ground it carries around the world down into the mud? He doesn’t care. Moral high grounds are for wimps. The US owns the Western Hemisphere, so it can do anything it wants there — just watch! As for the rest of the world, they’re all shit-hole or doomed or ego-stroking countries, so who cares about them. Letting Russia and China do what they will? As long as he looks good (put up another triumphal arch!), it sounds to Trump like a fabulous plan.
The follow-up with Cuba is meant to tell the entire world — from Cuba, to Greenland, to Iran, to the UK — that, if they don’t say nice things and give nice concessions, the nigh-omnipotent adolescent in charge of the US military machine might invade their place next.
Nice country you got here — shame if the Marines were to invade it.
Is that the might-makes-right, organized crime approach to foreign relations that we really want to represent as the norm for us, or for our enemies (who will be ever-growing in number?
Stray thoughts that my writing above might provoke (or that come to mind, since it’s been quite some time since I spoke broadly about Trump).
He was elected President
He sure was. None of that makes the above justified, or legally or morally defensible. People wanting a dictator doesn’t make having a dictator any more legal.
Yeah, but he’s better than Biden or Harris!
Even if so, see above.
He’s making America great again!
Only in a Hobbesian “nasty, brutish, and short” war of all-against-all sort of way. Which is not likely to end well for anyone, including America.
That said, I don’t think Trump cares about the long-term reality. He wants a strong/great America because he wants to be the Dear Leader of a strong/great America. It’s about him, not us. Sure, he’d love it if people put in statues and monuments and triumphal arches to him for centuries to come — but he’s much more into them doing it now, while he’s around to bask in the adulation.
If it all goes to shit the moment he’s dead? I don’t think he gives a damn.
What about the US invasion of Panama?
Yes, one could argue that 1989 attack to arrest Noriega and end his dictatorship had the same justification (or, on the other hand, lack of it) as Trump’s actions in Venezuela. One could handwave about how Panama had formally declared war on the US, that American citizens (in the Canal Zone) were in danger, or that the Panamanian Defense Force had killed an American Marine, but that’s not much.
But even so … so? I’m not sure a 37-year-ago precedent — and not a particularly admirable one at that — means much.
It’s all just Trump Derangement Syndrome!
I’m old enough to remember when Democrats dismissed wild, weird conspiracy theories about Clinton(s), Obama, and Biden as “Derangement Syndromes,” which seemed quite credible, given the utter craziness about what was being said (e.g., Pizzagate, Operation: Jade Helm, etc.).
Trump, of course, is always happy to project what he and his are doing onto others — thus now everything is dismissed as “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (no matter what sort of criticism or concern it is).
Indeed, the TDS label is just what Trump likes, because he can just say it, rather than countering arguments being made against his actions and plans. It’s a lovely ad hominem — one of his favorite things.
If it’s worthwhile, I don’t think this invasion was a Wag-the-Dog to distract from the Epstein Files. Or from the economy. I might be convinced that he’s looking for a topic for that big triumphal arch he’s having built in Washington for the 250th of American Independence (irony is not Trump’s strong suit).
I do think that the minor reason for all this is that Maduro didn’t bow down to him when he demanded it (adolescents want respect, earned or not), and the major reason is that he wants to be a War Leader and ride in a parade, and maybe make sure that it’s his name on that triumphal arch (adolescents love ego strokes).
Oh, he’s just joking about Subject X
This is commonly said by Trump’s enablers when he says something particularly grotesque, hurtful, threatening, or a bit cray-cray.
Never mind that some jokes just aren’t funny or appropriate, given his position. If I had my family over to your house and, on your way out, said, “Hope your granny doesn’t slip and break her hip and die a painful, lingering death,” would it become “okay” if the rest of my family (not me, of course) insisted it was just a joke, ha, ha, ha, he’s so high-spirited and outspoken …
For that matter, is there a single thing that Trump has joked about doing that, when he came to it, he didn’t actually do? Sometimes its to stroke his own ego, sometimes because its what he wanted, and/or sometimes because he knew it would outrage his impotent opposition. But way too many of those jokes have turned into a twisted, Joker-like reality.
Don’t worry, it’ll all be over soon
At best, Trump is President for another three years. He’s hinted enough times that he wants a third term, of course. Is he that to:
encourage folks to figure out a legal way to bypass the Constitution?
see how much popular support the idea draws (either as a way to make it happen or because of the ego stroking it provides)?
get off on making his opponents angry?
normalize the topic so that when he does it (emergency powers!) people won’t be shocked?
But even if he doesn’t make a grab at that brass ring (and if he does, do you think the other two branches, under his control, will really stop him, given their acquiescence and support to date?), he’s still around for three years (since we know, because he’s told us, he’s in Perfect Health, Much Better Than Has Every Been Seen Before).
Charlie was a bad loser
How much more damage will he do in three years?
How much more pollution and climate damage and opening up of wilderness to mineral extraction? How many more civil rights will he take from how many more people? How much will he Make America White Again? How much damage will he do to our national reputation, or our national norms, or our national identity, or even the idea of us being a nation any more?
And that all assumes that we don’t get President Vance taking office in 2029.
Sitting back and trusting that things will snap back to “normal” in three years, if we just hold on … doesn’t seem like a smart idea. A lot of damage, pain, and death stands in the balance.
We’re in the hands of an adolescent. What are we going to do about it?
Charlie gets taken away (hopefully not returning four years later).
The Enterprise is only saved because the disembodied-nigh-gods realize their mistake and come to take Charlie away where he cannot hurt anyone, even if it means that he’ll be isolated from humanity for the rest of his life. In his case, it’s a tragic ending to the story.
In our case … I don’t think can’t count on that sort of divine intervention.
It’s annoying to think that I wrote a post with the same title — and about the same person — almost nine years ago.
The government is threatening media outlets that criticize them. Those outlets are bending knee to those threats.
First people who said positive, celebratory things about Charlie Kirk’s death were targeted by the Right.
Then people who noted that Charlie Kirk shouldn’t have been killed, because killing is wrong, but that, besides that, he was an asshole who said terrible things, were targeted.
Now people who note that Charlie Kirk shouldn’t have been killed, but that the MAGA Right was exploiting his death to (without basis) villify the Left as being responsible for it, were targeted.
And, in all cases, it was just described as retaliation for “comments about the killing of Charlie Kirk.”
Cowardly Disney Caves To Brendan Carr’s Bogus Censorial Threats, Pulling Jimmy Kimmel
There are multiple ways into this story, but almost all of the reporting on what’s happened claims that Disney pulled talk show host Jimmy Kimmel’s show “indefinitely” over comments that Kimmel mad…
What sort of awful things did Kimmel say about Charlie Kirk, reprehensibly celebrating his killing as a good thing?
None. He didn’t do that. He didn’t say anything positive about the killing (he called it murder), and he didn’t even say anything negative about Kirk.
Here is (for the moment) the video of Kimmel’s monologue that landed him in hot water:
He critiqued the MAGA Right about how they were handling the killing (2:03):
We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and put everything they can to score political points from it.
He critiqued Trump on making a bizarro pivot (on actual news video) from how he was holding up in his grief about Charlie Kirk’s death, to bragging about construction on his Big, Beautiful Ballroom (2:26):
I think very good, and by the way you can see over there all the trucks, they just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House which is something they’ve been trying to get for 150 years and it’s gonna be a beauty.
Much of the rest of the monologue was poking fun at Trump about a number of other things, which is doubtless why Trump regularly insists on sharing with us his belief that Jimmy Kimmel is not at all funny, even though the ratings say, yeah, he’s pretty funny.
But none of it was celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death, suggesting he brought on his death, or even saying anything mean about Charlie Kirk.
But that halo effect keeps getting bigger, and Disney/ABC heard Trump’s head of the FCC, self-proclaimed “First Amendment warrior” Brendan Carr, suggest that ABC’s broadcast license might be yanked over this, or the licenses of ABC affiliates, unless they pulled Kimmel off the air …
I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.
and
There’s action we can take on licensed broadcasters. And, frankly, it’s really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast or Disney and say, listen, we are going to preempt, we’re not going to run Kimmel any more until you straighten this out because we licensed broadcasters are running the possibility of fines or license revocation from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion.
… and so the biggest affiliates (Sinclair and Nexstar) leaned on Disney/ABC, and Disney/ABC pulled Kimmel off the air.
They didn’t pull him off the air for supporting political violence. They didn’t pull him off the air because he was saying things not supported by the First Amendment.
They pulled him off the air because the US Government threatened them with financial losses if they didn’t. And because, frankly, Nextstar and Sinclair are pretty conservative organizations (remember how Sinclair used to dictate “news” items to its affiliates to read on-air?) who have been eagerly sucking up to Trump, and so this gave them a semi-legit way to leverage Trump’s favor. Even if, based on SCOTUS rulings even within the last year, it’s clear that such an action by the FCC could not stand up, it was easier for Disney/ABC to bow down.
Which will make the next time that much easier, too.
You know, I’m old enough to remember how Americans — especially conservative, Republican Americans — used to deride the Soviet dictatorships for being so sensitive to comedians making fun of their government and leaders. “We have freedom!” they would say. “They have insecure tyranny!”
The derision is on the other foot now.
UPDATE: Carr now says that this was all so terrible of Kimmel because he “appeared to mislead the public” about the background of the Charlie Kirk murderer.
That’s still protected speech.
Kimmel’s comments were plausibly true.
Even if they weren’t, Jimmy Kimmel is a comedian and commentator, not a news reporter.
Charlie Kirk spewed falsehoods and misleading hate speech on a daily basis, and nobody on the Right ever suggested his speech should be suppressed.
Threatening the power of the FCC to yoink broadcast licenses because someone being broadcast by them says something even “misleading” as a political comment — is regulation of political speech, censorship, and a crystal clear violation of the First Amendment.
I mean, everyone knew Robert Redford, and Robert Redford movies. I mean, everyone. Even me. I am so not-into the Hollywood motion picture thing, as a whole, that usually the number of Oscar Best Picture nominations I’ve seen can be counted on the thumbs of one foot.
And even I’ve heard of Robert Redford.
In fact, the crazy thing about Robert Redford, for me, is that every time I’ve turned around since his passing was announced, I’ve been reminded of yet another film — oh, yeah, that had Robert Redford in it, too!
An amazing CV, that man.
Robert Redford: 20 Essential Movies
Robert Redford’s best roles, from ‘The Candidate’ to ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,’ ‘All the President’s Men,’ ‘The Way We Were,’ and more.
Read More
www.rollingstone.com
The Rolling Stone article linked there tosses in 20 significant / “essential” movies from his corpus, and, no surprise, I’ve seen a few (**), I’ve heard of more (*), and I’ve never heard of a surprising number.
The Chase (1966) Barefoot in the Park (1968)* Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)** Downhill Racer (1969) The Candidate (1972)* The Hot Rock (1972) Jeremiah Johnson (1972)* The Sting (1973)** The Way We Were (1973)* The Great Gatsby (1974)** Three Days of the Condor (1975)* All the President’s Men (1976)** The Electric Horseman (1979)** The Natural (1984)* Out of Africa (1985)** Legal Eagles (1986)* Indecent Proposal (1993)* The Horse Whisperer (1998* All Is Lost (2013) The Old Man and the Gun (2018)
One of those, The Sting, is on my Ten Movies on a Desert Island (with Electricity and a Blu-Ray Player) list. It was near the end of Redford’s “boyish” phase — his Johnny Hookier is still getting by on that big smile and fake golly, ma’am charm — but he plays an integral role in the amazing ensemble cast.
It’s the opposite story with Butch Cassidy — the film itself feels too iconoclastically 60s/70s, defying or poking fun at all the cowboy film tropes a bit too hard. It succeeds because Redford and Newman (and Ross) are such charming characters.
It’s worth noting that Out of Africa was the first movie I ever bought on video-tape (VHS, for the record), back in the days before I realized I shouldn’t buy sweeping, moving dramas, no matter how sweeping and moving they were, because I was unlikely ever to rewatch them.
Handsome. Charming. Boyish. Tousled. Magnetic. Casual. Impish. Gravitas. All those words keep getting tossed around about Redford, and the fact is, they can all be legitimately tagged on him. Remarkable.
I could comment more on a number of others form that RS list, but I’d like to put in my own word on a couple of Redford appearances that I know him from. And, yes, they lean on the geeky side:
The Twilight Zone, 03×13 “Nothing in the Dark” (1962) — And, yes, this is TV, not movies, but it still tracks. Redford plays a minor but essential role here as a beat cop whose shooting and mortal injuries are the only thing that can stir an agoraphobic old lady (oldies film star Gladys Cooper), who’s terrified that her apartment building home is being torn down, to reach out of her shell and reclaim her humanity. It’s a George Clayton Johnson TZ, so plenty of maudlin feel-good in there, but it’s also deeply moving, and Redford plays his part to a tee.
He also looks so damned young, which is part of the point.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) — Dismissed as a “cameo” by Rolling Stone, Redford’s Alexander Pierce calls on all his charm and gravitas to play the charismatic “World Council” coordinator and (spoilers) covert Hydra agent who’s spearheading the paranoid plot that Cap et al. have to thwart.
I mean, it’s not Citizen Kane, but in Redford’s hands the role and heel turn is far more central and interesting than it would have been in a more generic actor’s hands.
Sneakers (1992) — Another desert island list nominee, Sneakers is a dramedy caper flick, starring a Robert Redford who’s supposed to be looking his age playing Martin Bishop, head of a ragtag private security firm that’s hired to do “sneaks” into corporations to test their physical and (ooh!) computer security. Redford gets to work his light comedy chops here, while also taking on the serious part of a man realizing he’s frittered much of his life away, never having gotten past (emotionally or legally) his college prankster past, which is now seriously catching up with him. It’s a great ensemble cast again, with Redford at the heart of it, and I’ve watched it more times than I can count.
Anyway, that was a lot more time than I thought I’d spend thinking about Redford’s passing
Thank you, sir, for many hours, past and future, of entertainment. You were a star.
Trump is, once again, out to silence critics by suing them for massive damages.
Trump has expanded one front (“the guy with the most money always wins”) of his multi-front war on non-kowtowing media by suing the New York Times for (cue Dr. Evil) $15, accusing them of defaming him.
Donald Trump files $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times
President Donald Trump filed a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times and four of its journalists on Monday, according to court documents.
Read More
www.npr.org
What horrible, scurrilous, utterly unfounded, brazenly lying, callously malicious thing did the NYT say?
They said he built his fortune and rep, in part, through fraud.
They printed an interview with retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. John F. Kelly, his former chief-of-staff, who warned Trump met the definition of fascist.
They credited producer Mark Burnett, not Trump, for the success of The Apprentice.
I suspect it’s that last one that stings Donald most.
The suit is a huge laugh, and is almost a dictionary definition of a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation), designed to quell criticism by suing the snot out of anyone who criticizes. In such a suit, the smaller, less-well-funded party (the defendant) has to bankrupt themselves trying to defend the case, or else nearly bankrupt themselves settling and then publicly taking back everything the accuser didn’t like. It’s commonly used by big businesses to silence locals who speak out against their operations or projects. Trump has turned it into a personal weapon against those he doesn’t like.
In this case, though the NYT is a huge corporation, the Dear Leader’s deep pockets seem similarly limitless, especially since any number of wealthy backers (or, worse, already-impoverished-but-fanatical MAGA folk) will be happy to help pay into a Donald Trump Legal Defense Fund.
Indeed, the “smart” thing for the Times to do would be to settle, as so many other targets of Trump’s private and public judicial threats have done. We know how vindictive he can be to anyone who fails to show the level of respect he demands. He will gleefully pursue this suit to the bitter end — and beyond.
On the other hand, maybe the Democratic Party can sue Trump for defamation, based on the assertion in the filing that “Today, the Times is a full-throated mouthpiece of the Democrat Party.” I know a lot of Democrats who instead consider the NYT a namby-pamby centrist rag, so eager to seem impartial and above the fray that they both-sides the most ridiculous things. Not even the Dems are inept enough to run a propaganda operation that way, and implying they are is, thus, defamation.
Or maybe I can sue Trump for defamation. After all, he regularly posts things like this:
[blah blah blah mindless drivel blah blah] your Favorite President (ME!)
I find it deeply offensive that someone would accuse me of holding Trump (HIM!) as my Favorite President. Indeed, I believe this clearly and maliciously defames my intelligence, sanity, morality, taste, and patriotism.
I’m pretty sure I have a case. All I’m lacking is a herd of lickspittle attorneys and the implicit power of the US Government.
This has been an amazing month for super-hero movies
(NO SPOILERS)
4.2 Acting 5.0 Production 4.5 Story 4.5 OVERALL with a ♥
Fantastic Four: First Steps is just about everything I could have hoped for from an FF movie. I am an admitted soft touch for super-hero flicks, but this is one of the first such films in a long time (if we exclude the equally-but-differently excellent “Superman”) where my arguments don’t have a lot of, “Yeah, that part was weak, but it was more than made up for by this part that I thought was spiffy.”
Story
Gotta start here first, because this movie excels in setting up the retro-future 60s comic book world of Earth 826 (which number has special meaning), and then keeps the plot running strong, fast, and in a reasonable (within comic book logic) direction.
The setup is almost too much — too much fun and love with a world where the Jetsons was just a preview and the FF have been the world’s only super-heroes (and diplomats, and genius scientists, and space-faring celebrities, etc.) for four years. I wouldn’t cut out a minute of that, but it felt just on the edge of over-indulgent.
But it’s all (mostly) for setting up how things are going to work, what the logical premises of this world are.
When a run time for FF:FS was announced, it was one of the longest Marvel movies to date, but when the final run time was given, it turned out to be one of the shortest (at 1:55). I will be curious to learn what got cut to make it that, but, as someone who almost always wants more, I felt like this movie was just the right length. Bravo that.
It’s also worth noting that, save for an end-credits scene (there’s only one, mid-credits), this movie is completely separate from the MCU. And that works, too, especially knowing that, sooner or later, there will be a significant cross-over.
That brings up a a side question of tone. My family pointed out their major critique of the MCU for some years has been too much throwing around of one action scene after another, many of them doing less to advance the plot than to satisfy some suit’s need for MOAR ACTION. FF:FS has action scenes, sure, but it also has a lot of talky scenes, and emotional scenes, and fun scenes, and more talky scenes. The movie, ultimately is less about the action, or even the BBEG threat, but about this family and the things they do together (which do include action against the BBEG, but aren’t limited to that).
It will be interesting to see how those somewhat opposing creative currents ultimately mix.
Acting
Being a movie about people and relationships, the quality of the actors (and the writing and directing done for them) becomes more important. And, frankly, the acting here is a good tick above competent, and the writing and direction support that. This could have easily turned into “The Reed & Sue Show,” or gotten side-tracked on one character’s problems, but everyone gets multiple moments to shine (and do so).
Vanessa Kirby plays a passionate and powerful Sue Storm. Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards is intellectually brilliant and emotionally troubled. Joseph Quinn gives us a irrepressible (but not annoyingly so) Johnny Storm. And Ebon Moss-Bachrach, even working through a CG character on-screen, plays a compassionate and sympathetic Ben Grimm.
And I use the characters’ names deliberately here, as the movie rarely refers to any of the Four by their “super-hero” names (only Reed’s “Mr. Fantastic” gets a prominent call-out). That further helps ground the movie, making it about people, not about masked monikers.
It’s also worth a note, both story and acting-wise, that while everything isn’t sweetness and light and familial love for the entire film, the movie never takes a serious dip into what could be very dark aspects for all these creatures. There’s plenty of emotion, but little trauma / body-horror / emotional fracturing plot elements that have popped up in the FF comics over the decades, and that’s quite appropriate for this film. This is a film about light in the face of darkness, not the darkness itself.
Most of the other actors involved have substantially more bit parts, with the exception of Julia Garner’s Shalla-Bal who, between run time and silvery CGI, still can’t give us more than the bare bones of her character. But everyone (including some lovely cameos) does a fine job supporting our core cast. As they should.
Production
In terms of setting, the movie is beautiful, and evocative of Kirbyesque mid-60s weirdness, googie architecture gone wild, and a world that (super-villains aside) it would be a blast to live in. All this is rendered lovingly, with a ton of practical effects blurring seamlessly with the CG. The movie just looks gorgeous.
A critical part of that texture is music, and Michael Giacchino gives us, to nobody’s surprise, an amazing soundtrack, combining the period feel with action with just, well, a fantastic vibe. Delightful.
For the specific special effects, they are very, very nice. Reed realistically stretches (and uses that stretching). Sue’s invisibility and force fields are nicely done. Johnny’s flame-on effect looks really good. And Ben himself looks and acts and moves quite well and believably. Galactus himself looks and moves just right. And the Silver Surfer’s silver surfing is exquisite.
Surely there was something you didn’t like, Dave!
If I have to pick nits, I think the Silver Surfer story line needed at least one more scene. Galactus is a bit too much of a dick. And, no, Ben, the beard looks stupid.
Net-Net
Having Superman and Fantastic Four: First Steps come out within weeks of each other is an embarrassment of riches. Both feel fresh, hopeful, and encouraging for both their universes and for us comic book movie fans.
There’s a lot the two films have in common — trying to start off already-known characters as unencumbered by the past as possible being number one, and the decision to start in media res of their careers rather than obsess on origin stories is number two. Maybe number three would be dealing with the fickleness of adoring fans (and, to go with them, vicious critics) is. And feebleminded accusations of “wokeness” are, sadly but inevitably number four.
But there are differences, too. Superman focuses on just one guy (with personal relationships, to be sure) trying to make it through; FF:FS focuses on family and how they stand together to make it through. Superman‘s tale is more grounded on Earth, so to speak, despite its protagonist’s extraterrestrial origin; its villain is a narcissistic and xenophobic billionaire genius whose designs on power aren’t laudable, but are pretty likely to leave most of Earth’s population alive and possibly even (if he can focus on doing positive things) better off. The FF are instead dealing with a truly cosmic threat, even when that threat touches ground in New York City, and the stakes for them are huge, personally and planetarially.
Regardless, both are solid entertainment. I recommend both films whole-heartedly. Hopefully both are signs of good things to come.
A good set of trailers is like a great hors d’oeuvre!
I write down the trailers we saw so you don’t have to!
Well, it would be kind of weird if you wrote down the movie trailers we saw. Just saying.
Project Hail Mary — Ryan Gosling vehicle from the novel by Andy Weir (The Martian). Looks like it has much the same techie gravitas that The Martian had, but with a bit more Ryan Gosling humor and a bit more weirdness. That said, after the trailer, I feel like we’ve seen much of the film. I might watch this on streaming. Or an international airplane ride.
The Naked Gun — I knew Frank Drebbin. I grew up reciting lines from Frank Drebbin. You, Liam Neeson, are no Frank Drebbin. Okay, I guess you’re supposed to be Frank Drebbin, Jr., which makes me feel very old. Anyway, I’m not sure if it’s fondness for the old, or the attempt to update the zany Police Squad humor for a new generation, but the trailer just didn’t click for me. The lack of Abrahams/Zuckers involvement may not have helped.
The Bad Guys 2— Huh. Does this mean I have to watch The Bad Guys 1? Actually, I’m a sucker for a caper film, so this might go on the “international flight” list.
Fantastic Four: First Steps — Well, I already knew I was going to this one (tickets pre-bought). I’m a little worried that they are showing too much in the current trailer (plot-wise and punchline-wise), a classic complaint about movie ads these days. But I’m still liking what I see. Except maybe for Ben’s beard (!?!).
Caught Stealing — Um … this one didn’t strike me as particularly appropriate for the crowd at Superman, which involved a lot of adults, but also quote a few kids. I mean, it’s being tagged as a “dark comedy” but also a “psychological thriller” and, based on the trailer, a pretty violent example of both. Not my cuppa, but also not what I’d want my 10-year-old watching.
Time for an interlude. How about a commercial … advertising for … the Navy SEALs? Apparently they’re recruiting.
One Battle After Another — Another one that seemed a bit dark for the Superman audience. Another “dark comedy.”
Wicked 2— Or Wicked: Step Into the Light or Wicked 2: Flying Monkey Boogaloo, or something else inspiring. Looks big and glossy and colorful and even somewhat interesting, and all I could think was, “Jeez, I better watch the first one some time soon.” Will likely be streamed.
Odyssey — Given that I’ve a long love of Greek myths and Homer, and my son was a classics major, that we are going to see this is very much a no-brainer. I can’t see we saw anything spectacular in the trailer, but it certainly has a really cool vibe.
(The trailer we saw is not yet on YouTube.)
Cat in the Hat — I had no idea this was coming out, so … mission accomplished, I guess. I don’t think I’m likely to see it (I’m pretty Old School 2-D when it comes to my Cat), but it doesn’t affect me like fingernails on the chalkboard as the Mike Myers thing did just a few years decades ago.
So a few hits in there, a few things I’m looking forward to in some form. Which is kind of nice.
Much better than I’d hoped, and a great kick-off to a new DC cinematic universe
4.0 Acting 4.5 Production 5.0 Story 4.5 OVERALL with a ♥
David Corenswet as Superman
I loved Superman.
James Gunn has given us a movie that feels like a comic book — like issue 75 of some long-running series. It starts in media res, both of Superman’s life and of his current battle (continued from last issue!). It doesn’t feel the need to hand-hold us into deep discussion and detail and backstory of everyone and everything, but trusts us, beyond a few opening words on the screen, to keep up as the story starts at high speed, characters pop up left and right, and the action never really lets up.
I mean, Superman’s been around for years? Metahumans have been on earth for centuries? Guy Gardner is a Green Lantern and that means something? The government is already worried about things? Luthor’s had time to put together a multiple plots against his arch-enemy? And we didn’t need a full movie to explain it?
Superman 2025 poster
The comic book feel extends as well to some aspects of the plot, which in places enjoys — or suffers from — the ability of the comics to have the reader just turn the page and ignore some sort of hand-waveable reality hiccup. That aside, the setting feels believable (for all its SF/Fantasy elements) because it is presented as not only believable but on-going. We’ve never seen this precise Metropolis and DC Earth before, but it feels like we have, not just because so much parallels the basic Superman setting, but because it acts like we’ve been here before, like we’ve seen another half-dozen movies with these characters, actors, and reality.
The movie is funny, it’s dramatic, it’s moving, it’s fun, it’s violent, and it has perhaps one of the best “this is what a super-hero battle looks like from the perspective of a civilian caught in the middle of it” sequences I’ve seen.
The production quality is overall top notch. I believed a man could fly. I thought the action sequences were well done. And a special call-out to David Fleming and John Murphy’s solid soundtrack, and Gunn/Warner Bros. for spending the money for them to make extensive (but still their own) use of John Williams’ iconic Superman score.
The cast is all great for their parts, whether the role is nuanced, character, and/or scene-chewing. Special commendation goes to David Corenswet as an eminently human Clark/Supes, Nicholas Hoult as a finely maniacal Lex Luthor, and Rachel Brosnahan as a believable Lois Lane. The rest of the actors, whether their characters are human or metahuman, do their jobs well and are written/directed by Gunn just as they need to be.
Krypto!
And, yes, Krypto the Super-Dog is here. And he’s wonderful.
I guess, on reflection, I understand why some folk have complained (pre-release) that this Superman is too (i.e., any) “woke,” since (a) he’s interested in the world, not just the country he lives in, (b) some distinctly self-aggrandizing villainous types paint him as a menace for being an immigrant and (literal) alien, (c) he live in a great metropolitan area that includes civilians of color, and (d) he preaches kindness, helping people, and personal responsibility to be a good person. But, frankly, if those sorts of things bother you, I suggest you avoid reading any Superman comics since his introduction in 1938.
Be that as it may, I have to be honest — I’m a comics fan and a soft touch for super-hero movies (I even have nice things to say about the least successful MCU productions). So one might expect I’d enjoy this film to at least some degree. Granted.
But I feel confident in saying Superman (2025) has instantly landed in the nebulous Top 5 Super-Hero Movies I’ve Ever Seen list. I am looking forward to see more of Corenswet and more of the new DC Universe James Gunn is helping build.
The latest MCU film hits the notes that past MCU successes have.
3.5 Acting 4.0 Production 4.0 Story 4.0 OVERALL with a ♥
There’s a lot going on in this poster, including some hints about the movie itself.
It’s no secret that the MCU has had some problems the past few years, starting with the slump after Avengers: Endgame and exacerbated by the COVID crisis. I mean, I’ve liked the movies and TV shows that have come out in that period — but I’m a pretty low bar (and I’m also used to comic book universes where everything is not perfect but you stick with titles anyway because you like the characters). I enjoyed (while granting some weaknesses to) Black Widow and The Marvels and Captain America: Brave New World. On TV, I enjoyed Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I even found things of interest in the Secret Wars TV series (though overall I thought it failed in its ambition).
Part of the problem has been finding ways to tell interlaced stories that don’t rely on having seen everything produced to date. Part of it has been trying to capture the magic of the Avengers sequence. Part of it has been writing that was at times less than sterling. And part of it, frankly, is that there is a contingent of very loud people who want Marvel/Disney to fail, for a variety of reasons.
So, all that said, I really enjoyed Thunderbolts*. My wife, who is nothing near the fanboy I am (and puts up with so much) really liked it, too.
The movie publicity really enjoyed leaning into that asterisk.
On one level, this movie is a sequel to Black Widow and Falcon and the Winter Soldier (and maybe a bit of Captain America: Brave New World, at least in reference). That said, I think folks could enjoy this movie without having seen or extensively studied those predecessors: one of the neat tricks the movie does is balance the tightropeof backstory exposition. We learn a lot about the characters during the film, but in ways that feel organic and unforced — no “As you know, Bob, the Winter Soldier was created by Hydra in 1946 …” infodumping.
Being clearly part of the MCU without feeling like you have to have memorized the MCU is critical for a long-running franchise of films; as one character notes, they were in high school when the Battle of New York (the first Avengers film) happened, and given that film came out in 2012, there are a lot of people who similarly struggle with remembering continuity. Thunderbolts* nails it with this one.
The movie also nails the mix between humor and seriousness. One of the touchstones of the early MCU, which carried on for some time, was using humor to dissipate too much seriousness and angst, but also keeping the dramatic stakes high to keep things from devolving into super-hero slapstick. Thunderbolts* manages to do this better than any recent MCU production, never taking itself so seriously as to be an object of derision itself, but always reminding us of the human costs and consequences of the world in which they live.
More leaning into the asterisk.
The acting overall works. The demands here are not great: this isn’t Eliot or Shaw or Woolf writing this stuff. But all our heroes are able to switch between (or combine) being serious and amusingly goofy in a way that feels comfortable and approachable. A lot of what Thunderbolts* is about is heroes dealing with less-than-heroic and less-than-successful pasts, and what guilt and trauma and and failure lack of agency and stress can do to a person. The actors we have here, particularly the PoV character, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova (the White Widow), handle this well, neither making things too grimdark, nor trivializing important issues.
Outside of the core team, the supporting cast, particularly Julia Louis-Drefuss as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, are solid. So is Lewis Pullman as “Bob,” in all his incarnations. I don’t expect any Best Actor nominations here, but everything is competent.
Without going into details, the story overall works pretty well, doing from solo mission to building the team to struggling against the odds to struggling against impossible odds. And while this is a comic book movie, not every problem is solved with fists and explosions. In fact, most of the important ones are not.
While the stakes in the film are, from one perspective, dismayingly high, the movie never loses its sight on the personal and ordinary. Where most superhero flicks have some sort of disaster porn of buildings collapsing and screaming crowds below, Thunderbolts* keeps its eyes on those people, making the heroics of the protagonists not just punching bad guys, but saving the innocent, over and over.
I was mostly unspoiled for the movie (an increasingly difficult task), so I was surprised more often than some movie-goers would be (including some of the discussions about Bob and Taskmaster, as well as the climactic reveal at the end). The movie certainly kept me on my toes wondering what would happen next.
Red Guardian’s favorite poster.
From a production standpoint, part of what also makes all this work is that the “powers” involved are relatively subtle, with most of the action being fight choreography. Yes, there is some flying, there are some super-powered fisticuffs, there is some CG-augmented action — but the movie comes across as very grounded and much less interested in Michael Bey-like explosions and more on physical and emotional combat.
Overall, I’m not sure this movie needs to be seen in the theater (let alone in 3-D, if that’s being offered), but it is definitely a good watch, arguably the best thing from the MCU in several years. I expect I will watch it a number more times in the future.
OBLIGATORY END-OF-MOVIE NOTE: There are two credits cut-in scenes, at the usual timestamps (one after the initial flashy credits, one at the very end). Both are entertaining and worth watching, though only the last one (before the lights come up) is of much consequence, albeit being a bit predictable.
I have to say, this is one of my favorite posters for the movie, including that tag line.
We went to see Captain America: Brave New World on its opening Saturday — a key moment for movie studios to advertise upcoming flicks they think that audience will want to come see.
Here are the trailers they fed us (with IMDb links for more info, the trailers themselves, etc.):
Novocaine: Looks like an action-comedy featuring a guy who feels no pain. Which, in real life, is really very dangerous (pain is an important way to keep us from burns and dismemberment), but here is being played for yucks as he tries to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend. I mean, I like Jack Quaid, but this makes me a little queasy.
Warfare: Looks like a gritty, meant-to-be-realistic view of modern warfare, based on the memories of a former Navy SEAL and his time in Iraq. From what I know (which is not a lot), it certainly looks realistic. Which, to my mind, is a great reason not to plan to go see it, because honestly I like my violence a little cartoony.
The Accountant 2: Another in the “cool guy who is a lethal weapon and tackles his job with casual aplomb” genre of films, starring Ben Affleck. I didn’t see the first one, and I don’t see anything here that has me rearing to go and catch the new one, which introduces a “buddy film” vibe by also include the protagonist’s equally-lethal brother.
Sinners: This looks intriguing, lots of interesting visuals, music, FX, period piece (20s-30s) around a pair of black brothers who return to their home town, only to find a Sinister Evil has taken root and etc. etc. I don’t anticipate going to see it because I am not a horror film guy, but it sure looks well done.
Jurassic World: Rebirth: I had no idea the franchise was continuing onward, this time with action hero Scarlett Johansson and all the dinosaurs that the original Jurassic Park deemed “too dangerous” to have at their amusement park. Looks like lots of CG dinosaurs, lots of guns, lots of action and danger and (I suspect) red shirts. Maybe if I ever get caught up with the franchise I’ll watch it on an airplane flight to somewhere.
How To Train Your Dragon: See! Companies other than Disney can ransack their IP to make oodles of money recycling animated features as live-action-except-for-all-the-CG features! What I saw in the trailer looked pretty good — but the original HTTYD looked (and still looks) pretty good so this one goes in the “when it’s streaming somewhere for super-cheap” stack.
Fantastic Four: First Steps: The same trailer as has been running on TV, only up on a great big screen, which looks pretty darned awesome. I am already planning on seeing this, so the trailer just made me re-aware that it’s one of the three MCU films coming out this year.
Thunderbolts*: Again, this trailer has been on TV already, so it’s just getting to see it embiggened. Still looks like fun, with an obvious “Suicide Squad, only in the MCU” vibe to it (and maybe a bit of that old fave, Mystery Men). Already marked on my calendar.
So there you have it — the only films I’m likely to see from that batch of trailers are the two I was already intending to see. Still, I don’t mind being exposed to some things I likely otherwise wouldn’t know about, so there’s that.
Always fascinating to see how many movies I’m never going to watch.
We rarely see R-rated movies, so going to see Deadpool & Wolverine opened up a whole new tranche of trailers, pretty much all of which we won’t be going to.
Red One – Doing a Santa Claus action movie, complete with Dwayne Johnson and a very ripped J K Simmons, looks amusing enough that I can see us streaming it some time.
Heretic – Hugh Grant as a religious (anti-religious?) fanatic that runs a couple of female door-to-door proselytizers through a horror maze thingamabob … nope. Even though I like Hugh Grant.
Wicked – Never saw the stage show (just never worked out), but the trailer looks pretty darned cool. This one we’ll likely see in the theater.
Speak No Evil – See, the problem with horror movies is that they say, “Let’s take something that everyone gets paranoid about, like meeting what seems like a nice family while on vacation and accepting their invitation to stay with them at their isolated farmhouse, only to discover that was a Really Bad Idea, and make a movie of it and everyone will want to see it,” whereas I say, no, that’s stuff I am paranoid about and do not need to see that paranoia instantiated in a film.
Borderlands – Something video-game based, which looks like kind of CGI action-adventure fun, but my son advises against it, so that’s likely the end of that.
Joker 2 – I really don’t need to see a picture that focuses on the Joker. No matter (in fact, probably very matter) how good it is at portraying the homicidal lunatic that’s driven up life insurance rates in Gotham. Let alone seeing another retelling of Harley Quinn’s abusive relationship with same. Nope. I used the time to run off to the restroom before the movie started.
A Complete Unknown – This is the year-or-two of Timothée Chalamet, and he looks like he’ll make a great Bob Dylan, and I really have no interest in a Bob Dylan biopic. But at least it’s not Bob Dylan jump-scaring people and then carving them up with a butcher’s knife. Unless there’s more to the story than I know.
Captain America: Brave New World – Clearly trying to riff off one of the best Captain America (in fact, MCU) movies, Winter Soldier, with its politics and spy tropes and betrayals, I’m just not convinced yet by the trailers. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’ll go see it. But I’m not sure what I’ll think of it when I do.
Alien: Romulus – Because the original focused on a bunch of adults, so clearly the only way to milk more money from the Alien franchise is to have it focus on a bunch of teen/twenty-something and What Inevitably Happens When They Try To Steal Stuff From That Mysteriously-Deserted Space Station. The trailer showed me absolutely nothing I haven’t seen before, so I don’t see much reason (even if I were a fan) to go see it.
Hmmm … so … not a lot of prospect there in movies that thought advertising before Deadpool & Wolverine was a good idea. The only thing I can say is, well, the movie trailers were a hell of a lot more interesting than the more conventional ads that have infested movie trailer time like … well, like face huggers on a mysteriously-deserted space station …
A very funny, very actiony, very enjoyable way to wile away a couple of hours. NO SPOILERS.
3.5 Acting 4.5 Production 3.5 Story 4.0 OVERALL with a ♥
We went to see Deadpool & Wolverine on Friday (opening weekend) night. I kind of pushed for it — we’ve enjoyed the DP movies in the past (usually to our surprise), but the rest of the fam didn’t seem enthused — until we were watching it.
Deadpool & Wolverine. Their relationship is … complicated.
I run very hot and cold on Deadpool in the comics. I tend to take my storytelling fairly seriously, and DP — along with “fan favorites” like Ambush Bug and the Impossible Man and Mr Mxyzptlyk and G’nort and even Lobo — are intrinsically silly characters that I usually get tired of pretty quickly.
I’ve also got only a moderate tolerance for Wolverine, as one of these characters who is so over-used it isn’t even funny.
Live action is a little difference, since movies with a given character tend to come out far less frequently. I enjoyed the first couple of Deadpool movies, despite myself, and Hugh Jackman is Wolverine. So I figured … this should probably be worth a go.
And, in fact, this movie is a very, very fun (and bloody) romp through the Marvel Cinematic Universe, tying together narrative lines from the previous Deadpool movies (with plenty of flashbacks and talky-talk for those who don’t remember that far back), things having to do with Wolverine movies (with the same caveats), recent doings in the MCU, and plenty of Fourth Wall commentary about 20th Century Fox, Disney, and whatever else turns out to be funny.
There’s a plot or three here, much more coherent than you might imagine, especially with a zany character like Deadpool, slathered with a Church Spring Picnic-full of Easter Eggs, and much capering about the Marvel multiverse (with plenty of meta commentary). There are even some lengthy serious moments! And character advancement!
But there are really two things about this movie that stand out (speaking broadly and non-spoilery). First, is that it’s fun. Well, unless you dislike F-bombs, and find huge gouts of CG blood disturbing. I was usually smiling, and I was laughing out loud (embarrassingly so) more than once.
And second, it is a HUGE love letter to the 20th Century Fox Marvel movies — various iterations of the Fantastic Four, Daredevil & Elektra, and, of course, the X-Men. With the Disney acquisition of Fox’s movie properties, they are able to — and actually do — some delightful things, even as they fade into the multiverse.
Good times. I look forward to getting this one on Blu-Ray so I can pause a thousand times and point and laugh some more.
I enjoyed myself.
Besties — as much as that might mean for either of them.
Who’d think that a movie about a kid’s toy would be one of the most human films of the year?
4.0 Acting 5.0 Production 4.0 Story 4.0 OVERALL with a ♥
First off, let me say that the production aspects of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie are … incredible. It is a beautiful movie and an incredible homage to its subject matter and its selected era aesthetic.
The movie itself is far more complex, with dozens of delightful, if not bravura, performances (Margot Robbie is, no matter what Helen Mirren says, perfection), coupled to an intricate narrative and examination of concepts around feminism, patriarchy, interpersonal relationships, societal norms, existentialism, capitalism, self-actualization, and a stubborn defiance of expectations to turn an message movie about dolls into a cartoon of easy heroes and villains.
I’m always a bit leery about saying something is brilliant, or even profound, but I will say that Barbie is simultaneously entertaining, nostalgic, hilarious, moving, inspirational, and thought-provoking, and I look forward to re-watching it a number of times in the future.
(And if it doesn’t have a broad spread of Oscar nominations, I’ll be quite put out.)
A nice, neat, fun, high-budget intro to the new Doctor
Finally watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special, Holiday Special, or Special No. 4 (depending on which advert you see for it).
I think the Fifteenth Doctor is going to be a lot of fun, full of compassion and whimsy. Not gotten a solid coherent read off of Ruby yet, but we’ll see.
The plot it self was moderately intricate, left some bits dangling for RTD to come back to, and, if a bit fantasy-heavy … well, Doctor Who has always been fantasy with most the numbers filed off.
Florida’s race to get rid of Evil Sex Books has swept up a number of Jewish authors
But, hey, let’s talk about how “liberals” are anti-Semitic.
“Florida district pulls many Jewish and Holocaust books from classroom libraries”
A global bestseller by a Jewish Holocaust victim; a novel by a beloved and politically conservative Jewish American writer; a memoir of growing up mixed-race and Jewish; and a contemporary novel about a high-achieving Jewish family are among the nearly 700 books a Florida school district removed from classroom libraries this year in fear of violating state laws on sexual content in schools.
The purge of books from Orange County Public Schools, in Orlando, over the course of the past semester is the latest consequence of a conservative movement across the country — and strongest in Florida — to rid public and school libraries of materials deemed offensive. While the vast majority of such challenged and removed books involve race, gender and sexuality, several Jewish books have previously been caught in the dragnet.
The Orange County case is unusual for the sheer volume of books removed — 699 including some duplicates, according to documents the district provided — and for the unusually large number of books about the Holocaust and Jewish identity included among them.
A surprisingly low-key but satisfying wrap-up to Indy’s career
Hey, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is now streaming. Let’s watch it!
TL;DR: Not a great movie, plot-wise (but, then, Indy movies never are). But from a satisfying character study, it rocked.
Yes, there are SPOILERS below. You have been warned.
4 Acting 4 Production 3 Story 4 OVERALL with a ♥
Okay, first off, that’s a horrible title, as it turns out. I’ve been trying to figure out a better one, and haven’t but … still, not good.
So there was all sorts of controversy over the CG de-aging of Harrison Ford for the first chunk of the film. I thought it worked just fine, as a matter of fact. There was plenty of (presumably doubled) action to carry through the visual illusion. Really, the only thing that doesn’t work in the WW2 sequences is Harrison Ford’s voice.
That said, mad props to Harrison Ford following that up with a full torso nudity at age 80ish. He looks old and horrible and absolutely, therefore, sells where the character is at.
Which is, a Man out of Time, old and in decline, working for a (it feels) less prestigious college, and literally plummeting into retirement. The audience recollections of his past adventures are assertively upstaged by the first Moon Landing. His adoring students of bygone films are now bubble gum-popping, jaded, and disinterested in stupid old “history.” His grand romances are reduced to a tiny apartment and divorce papers.
But it’s played very straight, no melodrama. It just is, grounded, mundane, in keeping with where Indy is in his twilight, a life of memories, bounded by noisy neighbors and the concrete jungle of New York.
God bless John Williams. The soundtrack is, with a few leitmotifs, unique unto itself … but so very, very Indy.
The story and direction (and Harrison Ford) convincingly give us age, even frailty, punctuated by a great right hook. Perfect.
I was really kind of hoping that CIA Lady would be a “figure of authority who ultimately sees that the bad guys are actually bad guys and she should be on the side of the protagonists” character. Alas, no.
The car/car/tuk-tuk/tuk-tuk chase through Tangiers is delightful, arguably the best action sequence in the film. Indy’s skill, competence, age, and incompetence are beautifully balanced.
I love that Indy represents received knowledge in competition with Helena’s street smarts, with her having a leg up in modern ruthlessness and him having a leg-up in experience.
The one least-believable part of the script is the idea that the ship carrying the Antikythera was manned by “one hundred centurions,” which is like saying “one hundred master sergeants,” which is kind of nonsensical.
A decent round of applause for addressing the “Mutt” problem — not just addressing it, but actually making it a key part of the backstory as to where Indy is at the opening of the film. It plays a part of the setting (the Vietnam War era) and the backstory (and not-so-backstory) of Indy and Marion.
So, yeah, Indy is not the worst sort of grave robber (accusations notwithstanding), but only because he donates what he robs to museums (phone call from Lord Elgin, Dr. Jones). That said, any archaeologist in the audience would be crapping their pants over (a) Indy’s treatment of the university artifact collection and (b) the recovery, opening, reading, and treatment of the Grafikos.
I loved how the references to Helena’s relationship with / obsession over his obsessions with / asserted disappointment from her dad had very, *very* clear parallels with Indy and his own father. Rubbed in when she noted his role as her godfather.
Okay, nice to see the Big Brute Killer Bad Guy hoist by his own over-sized petard.
Good Lord. It’s the “If you could kill Hitler …” time travel question, pivoted with “… and create a better Reich from it” as a plot element. Fantastic.
The final fate of the Bad Guys is fitting, but relatively low-key. That said, their fate is not actually tied to the fate of Our Hero, which is both weird and actually kind of fitting.
I was really wondering if they would pull the actual time travel trigger. And … they did, marvelously. And then I was really wondering if they would have Indy stay in the past. And … they resolved it quite on-point.
I love that, at the beginning, we are told that “Mutt died in Vietnam, Marion was inconsolable, Indy didn’t handle that well, their marriage fell apart.” And, when Marion returns at the end … maybe it wasn’t quite the way he described it. “Are you back?” I am not at all surprised that Indiana Jones is not a reliable narrator.
And, after a movie with lots of John Williams cues that are quite Indyesque music, with brief moments of leitmotifs … we get the full, bad-ass Indiana Jones March over the closing credits.
Character-wise, it’s a pretty large cast. Most are competent figures in passing, tropes to play a scene or five and be disposed of. The bad guy henchfolk fall into that category. So does the kid, Teddy. Toby Jones’ Basil Shaw is fun, but more of a plot device. Antonio Banderas’ Renaldo feels like a character who was contractually required to be prominently displayed in the posters, but who mostly ended up (appropriately) on the cutting room floor. John Rhys-Davies returns delightfully as Sallah, adding to the character’s richness but definitely in a supporting role.
Those aside, there are really three main characters. Harrison Ford is, of course, Indiana Jones, and plays him with weary enthusiasm and splendor. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a delight as Helena Shaw, Indy’s almost-Irene Adler / god daughter, uber-competent and very much not a romantic interest for the protagonist (thank heavens). Mad Mikkelsen’s Dr. Voller plays a worthy anti-Indy, the Nazi physicist / scientist who’s out to re-write history; he never gets much motivation other than “Nazi scientist!” but plays the role gamely.
In sum … a movie that flows in a competent narrative from scene to scene, with fine (if not spectacular) FX and action scenes … but a truly marvelous character sketch for Indy, and a profoundly fitting wrap-up for his career.
A look back at Season 4 of NuWho, and the best Companion ever.
David Tennant as the Doctor (Ten), and Catherine Tate as Donna Noble.
I will confess, I am a total Donna Noble fan (and have been for some time). So prepping for the 60th Anniversary Doctor Who specials by rewatching the Donna Noble season was a task I readily welcomed.
After endless ages in Doctor Who S1-2 of the Holy Beloved Rose Tyler, and the weirdly abortive S3 “oh, she’s falling for the Doctor, too” tenure of Martha Jones, having a Companion for S4 that was (a) out for a good, interesting time, (b) not falling on love with the Doctor, (c) sassy and independent, (d) definitely not falling in love with the Doctor, (e) nagged by an inferiority complex, and (f) oh so very much not falling in love with the Doctor, was like a breath of fresh air.
The chemistry between David Tennant and Catherine Tate was lovely. The dynamic of a Companion who wasn’t cowed or dominated or (as noted) smitten with the Doctor was delightful. There was humor, there was terror, there was so much of an EveryPerson about Donna, that every moment in her early tenure was a delight.
Her first encounter, in the S3 “Runaway Bride” gave us a person-on-the-street encounter with the weirdness of the Doctor. “Partners in Crime” shows both how that encounter has changed her and how the Doctor (a lesson that holds true for every regeneration, but particularly for Ten) absolutely needs a Companion. That’s reinforced in “Fires of Pompeii,” showing how the Doctor’s hit-and-miss adherence to the rules, like a good little Time Lord, can lead to moments of amoral inhumanity, and in “Planet of the Ood” gives the Doctor a boost in the moral outrage over that race’s slavery.
Donna gets pushed a little to the side with a standard alien invasion in “The Sontaran Strategem” and “The Poison Sky,” and, for obviously reasons, continues to play support in “The Doctor’s Daughter.” But she’s back on stage for the Agatha Christie “The Unicorn and the Wasp.”
The Doctor and Donna (and, welcome, River Song!) in the Library
After what is, at that point, a pretty normal Doctor Who season (a few invasions, some weird planets and historical pieces), S4 becomes nightmarishly dark. I would say that “Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead” are the scariest bits of the season, if not for the Twilight Zone-perfect “Midnight,” but Donna remains a presence — her phantom family drama in the Library two-parter makes up for River Song’s introduction pushing her a bit to the side, and her grounding of the Doctor after a very, very unpleasant encounter in the worst parts of human nature are critical parts of what make those episodes work.
All of which leads to an even darker tale in the first of the three-ep season wrap, “Turn Left,” where we see what the world — and, by extension, the lives of Donna and her family — becomes if she never takes the step that brings her to meet the Doctor. It’s an hour of progressive dystopia with shades of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta, as the various disasters and plots that the Doctor averted over the course of S3-4 actually come to pass when Donna’s not there to pull the Doctor back in “The Runaway Bride.” After the horror of the Library saga and the psychodrama of “Midnight,” “Turn Left” just becomes horribly depressing (with a frisson of horror from the bug on Donna’s back).
Throughout it all, though, Donna remains — if not positive, then resolute. Capable of outrage. Determined to make things better. Self-deprecating, but willing to step up for a fight. She is utterly human and utterly a force of nature.
It’s Old Home Week (or Two) on Doctor Who … but, yeah, I loved it.
That brings us to “The Stolen Earth” and “Journey’s End,” as Donna lets herself be recruited to save the world. The pair of episodes carries a massive, sometimes almost overwhelming amount of fan service, drawing in every NuWho Companion and hangers-on, including key cast members of Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures, into a massive, multi-layered conspiracy by and battle against the (of course) Daleks.
Through this, it would be easy for Donna to fade a bit into the background, but she’s a key, if controversial, part of the plot. By the end of things, she’s proven herself, the “Temp from Chiswick,” to be the most important human in the universe … and is, for Reasons, demoted into amnesiac former Companion, unaware of what she’d seen, done, accomplished.
Donna Noble, burning too brightly
It feels outrageously, massively unfair to the character, of course (esp. as Martha heads off to new possible adventures, and Rose ends up with her mom and the Man of Her Dreams, sort of). It’s still gut-wrenching to watch (even as it includes the meme-worthy “David Tennant in the Rain” scene), but, aware how much of it must have been driven by Catherine Tate’s contract (she had a successful career both pre- and post-Who) and the winding down the Russell Davies era, it’s actually a far better ending than “Oh, I’m tired of / traumatized by / unrequited about traveling with the Doctor, so I quit” (which is pretty much what sort of happened with Martha, and with a number of Companions over the decades). It hurts like hell, but it’s also a tribute to the character at the same time.
And where did things go from there? Lacking Donna, the Tenth Doctor goes into what turns into a self-destructive spiral ending with him (and the showrunner) regenerating into Matt Smith’s Eleven and Steven Moffat — accompanied by increasingly Mary Sue-ish Amy Pond and Clara Oswald.
Which, of course, brings us a few Doctors along (Peter Capaldi’s gruff rock star Twelve, and, under Chris Chibnall, Jodie Whittaker’s lovely Thirteen) to the 60th Anniversary specials, with David Tennant somehow becoming the regeneration into Fourteen and (we are told) Catherine Tate back as Donna. How will that work? Well, yeah, I’m a day or two late in watching, but I’m very eager to find out.
