(no subject)

1. During mindfulness meditation..."what are you feeling right now?" Frustrated and restless. I think I have winter cabin fever. I want to take really long walks and the weather is not really cooperating with me.

2. Hulu - "why are you cancelling your subscription after your free trial? Is it because there isn't enough on our service to watch?" No, it's because I have too many things to watch already and no time to watch anything else on Hulu. Also the only thing that I liked that was original and I couldn't get elsewhere was Runaways, and it's just not worth it. Plus, trying to be mindful about money at the moment.

3. Co-worker: "I hate Phil."
ME: Whose Phil?
Co-worker: The Groundhog.
Me: "What? Is it Groundhog day?"
Co-worker: "We have six more weeks of winter, he saw his shadow. Not that I really believe in that stuff, but still."
Me:" Yeah, I was just about to say...the groundhog has nothing to do with it. The weather has a mind of its own. And honestly, it's been all over the place most of the year anyhow."


FB

Uncle D: That groundhog needs to die. Kill the groundhog.
Uncle P: If only Bill Murray had thought of that during the film Groundhog Day.
Uncle D: He did. He killed himself and the groundhog, and he still had to do it again.
Aunt K: What happens if it is cloudy and there's no way he can see his shadow?
Cousin/Uncle D's daughter: Just move to Florida, we only have two weeks of winter.
Aunt M: See's his shadow in a palm tree -- eight days of winter...in the 70s.


4. Television Shows


* General Hospital

So, Lulu convinces Nathan, who's the son of a psychopath, to out himself as that psychopath's son in order to bring him out of hiding. The psychopath is already wandering about hunting down the son he actually knows about - the traitor. He pops up at Nathan's wife's business to harass and possibly shoot the other son, traitor Henrik. Maxie, Nathan's wife shows up, and he tries to kidnap her after shooting Henrik. Except, Nathan shows up -- in the doorway. Psychopath shoots Nathan thinking he's a cop -- he doesn't recognize that this is actually his son. Upon realizing it, he takes off without Maxie. Nathan dies. [Hmm, providing a brief synopsis of a long-running soap opera is apparently impossible. Also rather unintentionally humorous.]

Question: Is Lulu responsible for Nathan's death?

Poster1: Yes, of course she is.
Poster2: A boulder is pushed down a hill, and hits a child. Who is responsible? The person who pushed the boulder down the hill or the tree that got in the way and directed it towards the child. Just saying.
Poster 3: The person who shot him is responsible.
Poster 4: No, Lulu is, he wouldn't be there if it weren't for Lulu.
Me: He'd have been there anyway, he went to the business to kill the other son. He shot Nathan because he was a cop. If he'd figured out he was his son, he wouldn't have shot him.
Poster 5: No, Lulu is totally responsible -- Maxie will hate her for this.
Me: If Lulu were responsible, so would Maxie for doing the DNA test to find his father, his mother for enabling the psycho, Nathan for agreeing to the interview, the publisher who published it, I mean it never ends. The only person responsible is the person who shot him. Blaming others takes it away from the one who picked up the gun and made the choice to shoot.
Poster 6: Lulu did this! She's to blame. If it weren't for her - the psychopath would have never been there!

Sigh. And people wonder how Trump got elected.


* The Good Place

Me: Didn't notice this before but Eleanor's last name is Selfstrap. Trapped by Self or Strapped by Self. Cool.
Monitor: Eh, Eleanor's last name is actually Shellstrop. Not sure how you got from Shellstrop to Selfstrap.
Me: Really? I kept hearing Selfstrap. Note to self, Closed Captioning is your friend. (Also, as an aside, why I despise lectures. I have a tendency to mishear stuff. I still think the line in the title song from Flashdance is "Take your Pants off" not "Take your Passion". Note - didn't post this last part, because I didn't think of it when I was posting.]
Poster: I thought her name was Shellstrop?
Monitor: It is.


I've realized via these two forums that FB is not working for me as a discussion forum. It's far too chatty. And I have difficulty following it and apparently so does everyone else. Also, tiny tiny print. When I read discussions on it -- I feel like no one is reading or listening to anyone, they are just posting comments. So it's - random comment here, random one there, and no true discourse. Very frustrating, also rather unintentionally amusing at times.

Movie reviews

Been binge-watching movies on HBO. I decided to do a 7-day free trail of the HBO streaming service, which is the same price as HBO Now, but a heck of a lot better.

Outside of "Get Out", which was the best of the bunch.

1. Kong: Skull Island -- which I watched mainly for the cast, Tom Hiddleston, John Goodman, John C. Reilly, Brie Larson, Samuel L Jackson, and the lead from Longmire, who had a walk-on role.
It's not very good. Shame, had potential. Also the only Kong flick that veered away from the prevalent sexism and racism of the original ones. It's still slightly sexist, just not as bad as the original -- which admittedly wouldn't be hard.

Not much character development, and way too much emphasis on CJI monsters. But hey, monster movie.
The monsters weren't that bad, well except for the Giant Spider, that I fast-forwarded over. Because I don't do giant spiders.

Tom Hiddleston didn't have much to do. Wish someone would just cast him as Lymond in a television version of the Lymond Chronicles -- he's perfect for the role. Give the man stuff to do, please.
Thank you.

The emphasis of the film or theme was man vs. nature, and letting nature win. Or not interfering with stuff you don't understand. With King Kong as the hero, and Samuel L. Jackson and John Goodman as rather layered and sympathetic villains. Actually the real villians were skull-like lizards.

The only character who gets any development or follow-through is John C. Reilly's character -- it's actually his movie, which was interesting and bit innovative. He plays a WWII pilot who got trapped on the island with Japanese pilot at an early age. They find him, and the suspense is whether he'll make it off the island.

2. Split -- starring James McAvoy and Betty Buckley by M Night Shalaman. It's not very good.
I was bored during most of it. And the twist seemed a bit lame. Also, it's apparently supposed to be part of M Night Shamalan's Unbreakable movie verse. (Which made sense.)

I've admittedly only liked two M Night Shalaman films "Unbreakable" and "The Sixth Sense", which are the two films that featured Bruce Willis in a starring role. I own Unbreakable -- mainly because it is a brilliant commentary on superheroes and villians and how they create each other. Also, Samuel L Jackson is amazing in it.

This one is a thriller about a psychopath with a split personality (24 personalities) who kidnaps three teen girls and threatens to feed them to the beast (the 24th personality). Betty Buckely is the therapist treating him.

Another film that makes me want to strangle evil white men. McAvoy is good in it. So's Buckley. But other than that, the film drags, and its hard to care about the three girls, who aren't really developed that much, except for one girl -- who falls into the last girl standing trope in horror films.

Although Shalaman subverts the trope a bit, ( spoilers )

3. Suicide Squad - by Zack Synder, starring Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto and Viola Davis, among others. Like most Snyder films it's heavy on dark painted visuals. Also the action sequences aren't bad. But I found it busy and overly cheesy in places.

Robbie's Harley Quinn and Will Smith's Deadshot are by far the most developed of the characters. We get snippet back stories of the others. But most of the time is split between them, and with such a large cast -- this doesn't quite work. Also, considering the central love stories are Nick Flagg and Dr. June Moon (who is possessed by an ancient being called the Enchantress), Harley Quinn and the Joker, and Deadshot and his daughter...it doesn't quite work that we get little to no development of Flagg and Moon. I should have cared more about Moon and Flagg than I did. And the casting of both was lackluster.

They spent way too much time on the Joker and Harley Quinn. (It's worth noting that I've only appreciated two versions of the Joker, Mark Hamill's voice work of the cartoon version, and Heath Ledger's take on it in The Dark Knight. Everyone else goes a bit too far with the crazy and is just annoyingly silly as a result. Leto got on my nerves. I also have only liked three versions of Batman, Christian Bale, Micheal Keaton, and Kevin Conroy. Ben Affleck isn't bad -- he's better than Val Kilmer, Adam West, and George Clooney...but nowhere near the other three.)

Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn got on my nerves after a bit too -- which is a problem, because she's the heart of the film and its central focus outside of Smith's Deadshot. Smith almost saves the film as does Viola Davis, but not quite.

I can see why the critics hated it.

Shame, the idea had plenty of potential -- Deadshot, Doc Croc, Harley Quinn, Katana, Nick Flagg, some sort of burning death guy, Boomerang, all go off to save the world from the evil enchantress and her brother -- after Amanda Waller their handler underestimates the enchantress' ability to break her control over her.

I actually think "Arrow" did the Amanda Waller and the Suicide Squad storyline better in its second or third season. To date the DC verse has been better served by its television series than the movies. Maybe because the television series have to be more innovative, they can't rely on the standard Superman/Batman tropes -- which the movies own.

5. Now as a palate cleanser, sort of watching Australia again...the film starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman and a lot of Australian actors.