My Christmas Loot: Part 8, The Fantabulous Emancipation Of Looty!

Meedyah Morsels #185.

Here we go...


IT: Chapter Two (2019)

Review here.

Haven't torn into it yet.
There were good movies on TV for Christmas, and I just watched regular ass TV.
I haven't even caught up to yesterday's podcasts.
I have the same problem for Halloween these days.
I plan a DVD marathon, and then TV is too good.


Doom Patrol (Season 1) (2019)

Review here.

Thanks to "Crisis", it's canon!

Ditto what I said about "IT: Chapter 2"


Now, stuff lost in Amazon limbo....


Jessica Jones (Season 1) (2015)

Review here.

With the Netflix deal over, time to collect my favorites on disk.


Ghostbusters:
Spectral Shenanigans 
Volume Two (2019)

Sequel to volume one, and almost fills the continuity in up to "Mass Hysteria"
Compiles volumes 4-6.


Ghostbusters:
Volume 7 (2014)

And, that one takes it right up to Mass Hysteria.

When those two come, I'll only have to fill the gap from "Get Real", to "101", and then the newest ones after "Crossing Over", and I'll be all caught up there.


And then, the rest was a prodigious pile of candy.

(Pasted from Facebook yesterday, and tinkered a little)

There was a bag of Christmas flavored taffys (egg nog, pumpkin pie, cocoa, candy cane, cookie dough), a bag of regular assorted taffys, a 4 pack of Reese's cups, a bag of Butterfinger bites, 3 Russel Stovers marshmallow Santas, a bag of regular Jelly Bellys, a box of Christmas flavored Jelly Bellys, a bag of plain M&M's, a bag of candy corn M&M's, a bag of pumpkin pie M&M's, a bag of Sour Patch Kids, a box of Hot Tamales, and a bag of organic taffy (they look like Starburst) with a fru-fru French name that I'm sure Amazon sent me by mistake, but I'm eating 'em anyway.

Oh, and the Christmas Jelly Bellys are hot chocolate, egg nog, pumpkin pie, candy cane, and cranberry. sauce.

And there were two tiny bags of Lindor truffles with 2 truffles each, I inhaled those first.

Update- Those French Starburst gave me horrible heartburn for some reason. :-P

Update 2- Dad didn't want his M&M's and Jelly Bellys so he gave 'em to me, so I've got candy out the ass now!

I'll have to do a sequel post for if/when that last DVD and two books come.


Previously with Christmas/birthday loot-

• Christmas and birthday loot (MM #45)
• Birthday loot 2019. (MM #110)

Previously with MM-

Marvel DC crossover! (MM #184)

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On the ninth day of Christmas.

Nine ladies dancing!

• Eight maids a milking!
• Seven Schwans a swimming!!
• Six geese a laying!
• Fiiiiive golden riiiiings!!!!
• Four calling birds.
• Three French hens.
• Two turtledoves.
• And a partridge in a pear treeeee!!!!

This year's stuff...

• Big 2019 year end movie recap.
• Meedyah Morsels #1-150 compilation.
• Twisted Christmas! (Part 3)!!
• Twisted Christmas! (Part 4)!!
• Rudolph & Santa!

Um, yeah, that does the trick.
Bam, done.

And here's the link for my presents haul.



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RIP William Greider

From my future self in 6/28/26.

Like with the Melissa Hortman, Renée Good, and Alex Pretti ones, a shitty person died, and I didn't want to give them the time of day, so I dug up their good-guy opposite.

Took me awhile to find him, because our pseudo-centrist center-right media buried him under junk on purpose.

Here's his Wikipedia page.

He wrote a pile of books through the 90's and 00's warning of us of exactly what's fucking happened, and our pseudo-centrist center-right media hand-waved him off as a crank.

Meanwhile, Bob Woodward (Yeah, the anti-Nixon guy!!) wrote a slurping, head-bobbing, gagging, drool splashing, dick sucking, love-letter to a certain Randroid fed chairman called "Maestro". 

Greider was the only one with guts enough to call it out as a pile of bullshit.

I found out about this on this podcast.

Link.

And the guest was plugging this blog post.

Link.

So!! Check out Grieder's books, and weep until you puke for the thirty-fucking-years the Clinton-Dems pissed away doing fuck-all about the rise of corporate fascism.

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Big 2019 year end movie recap.

Previously-

• All The Movies!! 2012-2018
• Big summer 2019 movies recap.
• Big winter 2019 movies recap.

Same thing I said last time about the format change.

Here we go....

1. Joker

Yep, I hinted at it in the winter list, and there it is.

2. Avengers: Endgame

Endgame is a masterpiece of spectacle, but Joker is art.
Tough call, they're separated by fractional digits, but Joker won out.

3. The Rise Of Skywalker

Again, it's Star Wars.

4. Doctor Sleep

I said it would be in my top 5 for the whole year, and so it is.
It didn't get the box-office love it deserved though.
It was a Bladerunner 2 situation.
Sadly.

5. Spider-Man: Far From Home

Glad we're getting Tom Holland back for one more to finish off the trilogy, and one more team-up film.

6. IT: Chapter Two

Safe bet that this duology will go down in Stephen King history along with his other all-time greats.

7. Shazam!

I hope Birds Of Prey and Wonder Woman 1984 can keep up this fun upswing that DC is on.

8. Captain Marvel

The closest thing the MCU has to a Superman, really.

9. Dark Phoenix

I hope it doesn't take 'til the fucking 2030's for Marvel/Disney to get around to rebooting this property.

10. Terminator: Dark Fate

Much as I liked it, we're probably not getting a sequel.

11. Zombieland: Double Tap

OTOH, they made this one for pretty cheap, so I think it made its money back opening weekend.
We're good to go for part 3 if they want.

12. Glass

Shit, I still haven't bought this one disk.
Gotta get around to that.

13. Brightburn

However, if I ever buy this one, it'll be for compulsive superhero completism.
It's a good flick, but it's one of those "watch it once, and you're good", ones.

14. Pet Sematary

The weakest of the Stephen King renaissance movies next to "Dark Tower".
The IT duology, and Doctor Sleep blast this out of the water with torpedoes.

15. Hellboy

Stinkah winkah!


Summer was rough for Hollywood overall, but the winter movies bailed them out.
There were a lot of huge things like "Frozen 2", that just weren't for me.

Looking at this crop of ones I bothered to watch, pretty damned sweet.
2019 won't go down as one of the all time great movie years, but some of the all time great movies are in this year.


That was 2019.
See you in February for Birds Of Prey.


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Big winter 2019 movies recap.

Previously-

• All The Movies!! 2012-2018
• Big summer 2019 movies recap.

Yeah, I'm abandoning the format of the picture lineup, then the text lineup.
I'm putting the text and pictures together from now on.
It's easier for the reader, IMHO.
You're free to disagree in comments.

So, here we go....

1. Joker 

Best movie I saw all year.
Spoilers for where it is on the overall 2019 list.

2. The Rise Of Skywalker 

Star Wars always gets high spots on my lists.
The previous four made it to number one, but Joker was that fucking good.

3. Doctor Sleep 

I said I'd have it high on my list, and so it is.

4. IT: Chapter Two 

Not as good as Chapter One, but still pretty damned good.

5. Terminator: Dark Fate 

Fun, but unnecessary, but necessary to fix the damage of 3-5, but unnecessary in that you can just de-canon-ize 3-5, and stick to 1-2. But...y'know what? It's just fun to have Linda Hamilton and Arnold back together. And isn't that the real point (besides money) to do any sequel, to have our old friends back for a little while? Speaking of....

6. Zombieland: Double Tap 

Probably didn't need to see it at the theater, but I'm glad I did.


Yeah, nothing was bad in this batch, just slightly less awesome.
I didn't see a lot though.
But, if I had it to do it over for summer, I probably would have skipped 7-9, and seen Endgame a couple more times, and seen Brightburn on home video.

So, maybe I'm just getting better at picking.
Maybe.

Anyhoo....

Up next, all of 2019 in review, and then in February, Birds Of Prey!


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The Rise Of Skywalker (2019)

Big 2019 Movies Part 15.

Previously-

• IT: Chapter Two (2019)
• Joker (2019)
• Zombieland: Double Tap (2019)
• Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
• Doctor Sleep (2019)

Previously with Star Wars-

• I Love Star Wars
• The Force Awakens 
• Rogue One 
• The Last Jedi
• Solo
• Happy twelfth Star Wars day.
• Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker poster!

Let's get right to it....

I fucking loved it!!!!
Loved the ever-living shit out of it!!!

Is it perfect?
No.
Is it terrible?
Oh, FUCK no!!!!!!

The haters can suck it.
"It", being my ass after a fresh crap.

Solo is weaker, and I dug Solo.
The prequels are weaker, and I've even come around on the prequels.

All of its problems can be traced down to that it should be 3 hours to let stuff breathe.
Disney insisting it be 2 hours and change makes it cram a lot really hard.
Hopefully, we'll get the 3 hour cut on blu-ray.

But, in spite of that it's got a non-stop gas pedal stomping pace, and stuff gets crammed, what's there is awesome stuff.

There's a lot there, I'm gonna have to see it a couple more times.
But, I was going to anyway.

A lot of fan theories come true.
A lot of fan theories are destroyed.
A lot of fan theories happen....but in a different way than you expect.

You get a lot of shit you always wanted to see finally happen.
And a lot of shit you didn't know you wanted, but did.
And SOME shit you fantasized about as far back as the 80's, and didn't think they'd ever do, so you gave up on it, and forgot about it.
But, shit, they do it, and you're like "oh, we're doing this?? OKAY!!".

Fans of the old EU books will be vindicated.
There's shit either directly lifted, or that mirrors that stuff.

Speaking of...there's some (mostly minor) plot threads they're gonna have to flesh out with new EU books.
Or else, some of it's in that 3 hour cut.

But, nothing that breaks my heart that it's not there.
Your mileage may vary.

One of the criticisms is that a lot gets solved with ret-cons.
Ehh....that's a Star Wars tradition though.
"I am your father", and "Leia is my sister", are ret-cons.
The prequels are ret-cons.

This "Lucas had it planned all along!!", line is a fairy tale.
So, that doesn't bother me.
Again, your mileage may vary.

All I know is, I walked out of the theater feeling great.
Really fucking great.
That felt like real positive closure for Star Wars for me.
I didn't get that with "Revenge Of The Sith".
I felt like "ahh, there, that's all done", but I didn't feel jazzed.
With this one, I feel jazzed.
I haven't felt this great since Return Of The Jedi.

I could stop here, really.
I'm all set.
I don't need anymore.
I'll probably look in on whatever they do next, but I don't need it.
Marathon-ing the 9 Skywalker ones will set me up for the rest of my life just fine.
I'm good.

How would I rank this in the sequel trilogy?
Um..hmm.
Well, I like TLJ, and I put TLJ just behind ESB...
But this one made me happier than TLJ.
It's that eternal struggle between ESB and ROTJ.
ESB has the raw bloody dramatic meat, but ROTJ makes you cheer.

I think I have to re-rank them, because TROS makes me see all the films in a new way!

Sequel trilogy.

1. Force Awakens
2. Rise Of Skywalker
3. Last Jedi

Skywalker saga

1. Empire Strikes Back
2. A New Hope
3. Return Of The Jedi
4. Force Awakens
5. Rise Of Skywalker
6. Last Jedi
7. Revenge Of The Sith
8. Attack Of The Clones
9. Phantom Menace

Plus spinoffs

1. Empire Strikes Back
2. A New Hope
3. Rogue One
4. Return Of The Jedi
5. Force Awakens
6. Rise Of Skywalker
7. Last Jedi
8. Revenge Of The Sith
9. Solo
10. Attack Of The Clones
11. Phantom Menace

Yeah, a lot of critics are ranking TROS a 6-7 out of 10, and a literal 6 out of 11 on the list is about right.

Not the best, or the worst, but you'll have a great time, feel great walking out, and IMHO, it's a satisfying conclusion.
To the sequel trilogy for sure.
YMMV on whether it wraps up all 9 well enough.

Go see it.

Up next, this a couple more times, and the winter and year end recap!


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More Legion Of Sociopaths

Revisits #47.

A sequel to "The Legion Of Sociopaths".

I just need to throw links together, really...

Racist Reagan.

Rapey Reagan.

Rapey Trump.

The pervert pile.

Climate deniers.

The human termites that ate the first batch of Freedom Tower money.


Next up, by request, Roy Cohn!!


Previously-

Our rapey presidents! From the 80's! (R #46)


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