Shmegalamonga: June 2023

Friday, June 30, 2023

I covered the films that were made, the films that weren't made, here are the ones that looked like they'd be in Development Hell forever, and yet finally crawled to the finish line!

Looking back on DC Snyder-verse: Part 1.5, the DCEU that wasn't.

Part 1.

Part 1.5, because I want part 2 to be when I finally see all the remaining DCEU movies, and rank them.

I've got 3 to go out of the 4.

Anyway, so far, I've only talked about the DCEU movies Warners/DC actually did make.

They managed not to make way more than they did.

Thursday, June 29, 2023

RIP Alan Arkin

(Sent back in time from my future-self in August, cuz after I missed the Angela Lansury one, I was all out of whack, and didn't think I could ever catch up, and didn't know about the time warp thing Blogger can do. Therefore I was in a "if I can't do all of them, why do any of them?" kind of snit. Which is dumb, I know, but now I'm fixing it)

Yhep, poor Alan Arkin.

Another "The Last Unicorn" alumnus gone.

Him, Angela Lansbury, and Christopher Lee.

Jeff Bridges and Mia Farrow are still around though.

LU and "The Return Of Captain Invincible" are the two biggest things I know Mr. Arkin from.

Didn't get into the "Little Miss Sunshine" cult.

Shmendrick lives in the movie, and the books.

At least there's those.

Wish we'd gotten further animated sequels with Alan, but Peter Beagle's writer's block and side distractions didn't cooperate.

I can relate.

Fifteen years of Shmegalamonga!!!

-Years 1 through 12.

-Year 13.

-Year 14.

This one is late. Really late. But, I wound the time stamp back.

Which is why I reference things that happened after.

The colors for the 2022-2023 logo accidentally came out having a pasta and sauce look.

Which...I guess goes with the spaghetti-time scene in "The Flash" which was the only movie I've seen this year so far.

Saw "Thor: Love And Thunder" for the remainder of last year.

Gotta say...Marvel phase 4-5 aren't doing it for me like phases 1-3.

I'm getting picky with them.

Not sure if I even wanna Blu-ray half of 'em.

I'm in it for the multiverse stuff. Like Deadpool 3. That's the one I'm waiting for.

Nothing else in their future lineup is doing it for me.

Although...Captain America 4 looks like it's a back-door Hulk 3 the way Ragnarok was back-door Hulk 2. Might check that one out if it is in fact Hulk-y enough.

Corona seems to be in the rear view mirror.

Mostly.

Trump inches closer to jail, but also closer to the nomination and the presidency.

So, that's a terrifying slow motion snail race to watch unfold.

Supreme Court keeps being exposed as more and more corrupt and rotten.

...fuck pretending, it's Thomas.

It's all the Republican ones, but holy shit, is it Thomas.

Writer and actor strikes are fucking up Hollywood, so Ghostbuster 4 is in limbo, just like Afterlife was thanks to covid.

I turned 48.

Harry turned 34.

Harry books turned 11.

Jade-Shade turned 10.

Krazyfool's Den Of Delusion turned 24.

Harry Hembock: Dark Designs turned 14.

Paul Reubens and Sinead O'Conner died. 😥

Did two more book-a-thons

Part 1.

Part 2.

The latter of which made me collect all the Sandmans.

The former gave me a craving for more Peter Beagle, so I got "The Overneath" and "A Fine And Private Place". Might be getting some more Beagle (hint hint, wink, wink...).

Also got "The Exile" to go with my Outlander blu-rays.

Yeah, all that stuff kept me happy instead of the movie stuff.

That, and working on my own writing.

My movie ticket money went into Sandman, and I don't even feel bad about it.

Feels like three years worth of stuff happened, but wow, that was all one year, huh?

Keeping my head down getting through it made it all blur, I guess.

I think it was more good than bad.

Fingers crossed for Trump in jail.

Oh yeah, and here's the year 15 logo for posterity.

I've gone through the whole rainbow, so I guess that leaves greyscale.

After that?

Eh...I'll think of something.

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

"Superman Legacy" casting.

Wild! Right on the 10 year anniversary of me going to see "Man Of Steel" the new Superman and Lois (for the James Gunn reboot-iverse) just got casted!

David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan.

Good choices.

Corenswet has that Cavill jawline, and the blue eyes.

Likewise, Brosnahan looks like 80's/90's comic book Lois.

I gave my speculation on "Superman Legacy" here.

Short version; I think they're doing Superman Family.

Superman, Supergirl, Superboy, and Krypto.

Gunn has leaked Krypto is going to be there, so I think I'm on the right track.

Stay tuned!

Happy 10th anniversary, "Man Of Steel"!!!

Yep, 10 years to the day, I reviewed "Man Of Steel".

Three days after the actual release date. Not too bad.

This and "Evil Dead 2013" were the start of my theater movie reviews.

I covered all my thoughts on how the Snyder-verse turned out in "Looking back on DC Snyder-verse" and my review of "The Flash".

So, check those out if you haven't.

Friday, June 23, 2023

Ghostbusters 4 wraps!

So! Let's look at past patterns to see if we can predict the future!

Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Superman Lives!: A long ass journey!

Or, Post-Flash 2.

(Post-Flash 1)

Spoilers for a bunch of old movies, and one new movie.

Abandon if you're a big fat spoiler-baby.

The (eleventh) YEAR Of Hembock!

-1st through 9th.

-10th.

Since last time...

-Harry turned 34.

-Krazyfool Show turned 23.

-Krazyfool's Den Of Delusion turned 24.

Been two years since Margaret passed.

She'll always be linked to these books, cuz she pushed me to put 'em out there.

Only made DVD shopping money off 'em.

I don't care.

I used to.

It used to bug me.

Gotta be philosophical about it.

It's more attention than they would have gotten not published.

And it's more money than my so-called friends made on the comic they put out in the 90's, and left me out of. After lying to my face that I'd be in it.

Just "surprise! Here it is!".

"Ope, I'm not in it; fuck you".

So, yeah. Sold more than them.

It's not about the money, it's about the eyeballs, and if it brought joy to those eyeballs.

James Gunn said in the commentary for "Super" if only one person sees "Super" and loves it, he made it for that person.

I feel the same with Harry.

I know in my marrow those books are funny.

If someone laughed, I win.

Margaret used to tell me she knew "a friend" in his 80's-90's who let a bunch of screenplays, and a whole musical about Thomas Paine, and a raft of cartoons just sit in a drawer.

I often thought she made this person up to motivate me.

I later found out the "friend" was her partner, Jack Donner.

He played Tal on the Star Trek TOS episode "The Enterprise Incident".

They met at a convention.

Apparently, he was a secret multi-talent.

Secret, cuz he wouldn't even scan and Amazon that shit.

I wish I saw his stuff.

But its gotta be gone now.

Even if Margaret saved it after he died, which I doubt, when she passed, her kids would have chucked it. That's too many filters to make it through.

It got landfilled.

Poor Jack.

Jesus.

So, hey, Harry has more of an immortality than Jack's cartoons.

There's that, I guess.

Well, Jack's got his acting immortality, anyway.

I salute and grin every time "Enterprise Incident" is on.

Aaand, I'm working on my new book.

I keep chunking away on it year after year.

A book's only 300-400 pages.

It can't be written forever.

I have to get there someday.

Stay tuned!

Monday, June 19, 2023

Post-Flash spoiler review of my predictions.

Follow-up to "Flash movie timeline speculation".

After having seen "The Flash".

Spoilers. Proceed with caution.

Sunday, June 18, 2023

The Flash (2023)

Previously with the DCEU/Snyder-verse...

Saturday, June 17, 2023

Happy 20th Anniversary, Hulk!

So, Fox and Sony up and running, Universal jumped into the fray....

...and as fans, we got two good Hulk movies.

As a studio, Universal got treated like the husband in a cuckhold porn.

There's really no prettier way to put it.

Covered most of this before in the following links.

-Original review.

-Updated review where I point out how you can sorta make it work with MCU continuity.

-The history of Marvel's movie deals.

-Double-updated review from my isolation marathons.

Now, the update on all that, is that just as "Thor Ragnarok" is backdoor MCU-Hulk 2, "Captain America: Brave New World" is backdoor MCU-Hulk 3.

And it makes sense.

Hulk is a fully realized super-soldier.

They made him while trying to re-create Captain America.

The only drawback to Hulk, is he's a rage monster the Army can't control.

But since "Avengers: Endgame" he's Smart-Hulk.

And then in "She-Hulk" both She-Hulk and Abomination are intelligent, and can control their change.

And Banner can change back with a gamma wristband doohickey.

So Hulks are perfected.

They're the next evolution of Captain Americas/Winter Soldiers.

And The Leader is the villain for Cap 4.

Who better to pick up where Zola from Cap 1 &2 left off?

But, here's where the cuckhold-y part comes in.

As much as MCU is using the continuity, and characters, and actors of "The Incredible Hulk" so long as they put Hulk in a movie with any other title but "something, something, Hulk" Universal has to watch.

And poor little just plain "Hulk" gets no canon references.

"Hulk" gets treated like, well, like "Ghost Rider" frankly.

And that just isn't right.

I dunno, maybe there's secret backstory that makes this make sense.

Maybe a Universal studio head fucked Kevin Feige's girlfriend or something.

From the outside in, it just makes Marvel look a little petty.

ANYWAY! All that said, as a Hulk fan, and a cinema fan, I get to ignore all of that, and enjoy this movie for the weird experimental piece of cinema art that it is.

On the Ang Lee front, his very next movie was "Brokeback Mountain" and I find it interesting that those gay cowboys ended up becoming Joker and Mysterio.

😄

Friday, June 16, 2023

Happy 34th anniversary, Ghostbusters 2!!

-27th (Mere observance)

-28th (Ditto)

-29th (I observe the IDW comics pick up from TVG)

-30th (GB2 and ATC align politically)

-31st (Brownstone Boy to direct Afterlife)

-32nd (Afterlife delayed by covid)

-33rd (Afterlife arrived, Firehouse announced)

And the 14th for GBTVG.

Well, we know from the teaser poster that Firehouse/Hell's Kitchen probably isn't a Vigo sequel.

Although! There was a set touring video, and a Ghostbusters 2 thermal mug was in the background of the firehouse rec-room; so Ghostbusters 2 did indeed happen in Afterlife/Firehouse continuity!

As for the video game, it keeps getting ported to new platforms, and its still chugging along strong!

Even though Spirits Unleashed dominates the GB news cycle.

Should I do a Spirits Unleashed anniversary tradition?

Ehh...I just don't wanna.

So...all for now!

See you next time!