Pop culture stuff...to stave off ...

1. Ben Affleck Returns as Batman in the Flash Film.

It will also have Michael Keaton in it.
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There's speculation that DC may use the Flashpoint film to ret-con the DC film verse or reset it. Undoing the Snyderverse and Nolan's stuff. Kind of a reboot. Similar in a way to what they did in Days of Future Past with the X-men. But seriously? Anything could happen at this point.

The Flash movie's history is insane, apparently. And would take volumes to explain or so I've been told. Apparently it's been in development for years and had countless directors attached. It's so complicated it has a Wiki page devoted to it. LOL! So we'll see if it ever gets made or released.

2. Ten Things Whedon and Geoff Johns/Jon Berg added to Justice League that weren't necessary and kind of baffling

[Also offensive in a few places. So offensive that I'm kind of leery of Whedon now. I can barely look at interviews or photos of the man without cringing.]

Joss Whedon took a hatchet to the original Justice League, chopping away at Zack Snyder's vision and refilming more of the movie than necessary.

I'm tempted to do a meta about dialogue and humor, and how certain types of low-brow frat boy style humor doesn't work. But ...meh. I think I made the point already elsewhere.

Anyhow... a few excerpts:
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It's funny back in 2017 - I thought Whedon's Justice League was okay, with some jarring and cringe inducing moments, but overall not that bad. Then forgot it. Completely. I also thought he probably would make a better film than Snyder. In 2021, I find Whedon's film bordering on unwatchable, and my opinion of Whedon has tumulted, while I enjoyed Snyder's film and find aspects of it not only memorable but haunting.

Have I changed? Or has my perception/perspective merely changed? Or a little of both? Because the films for the most part are the same.


3. Coming to a television screen near you...

* HBO MAX - Kate Winslet plays a small-town detective in Mare of Easttown. It takes place in Pennsylvania and features a character who is a small town PI, with wrinkled clothes, and a bit of a grump. Premier's April 18.

* PBS - Hemingway Documentary by Ken Burns. Three parts. Airs - April 5

* ABC - Rebel - Katy Sagal plays an Erin Brockovinch type - legal advocate (it's produced and created by Erin Brockovnich).

* Netflix - Shadow and Bone - the fantasy series that adapts the Shadow & Bone and Six of Crows books. Focuses on orphan Alina Starkov - who may have the ability to upturn her world. Airs - 4-23

*THEM - on 4/8 Amazon Prime - it's an Horror anthology drama, that delves into America's cultural divides. The 50's set first season titled Covenant - is about a Black family from North Carolina who moves into then-all-white Compton, California. They battle the racism outside their hours and the evil of the supernatural sort inside it.

I plan to start Streaming "The Falcon and the Winter Solider" on Disney Plus this weekend.

4. Ames wants me to try these three books:

This Is Happiness: a lovely novel with sort of a sleepy start that rambles about life in a small Irish village in the 1950s about to get electricity. Male narrated/lead. It would likely remind you of your summer in Whales.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/books/review/this-is-happiness-niall-williams.html

A Gentleman in Moscow (has become one of my very favorite books): Is a 30-year saga of the Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, who is placed under house arrest inside the Metropol Hotel in Moscow in 1922. It is an "elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin." Male narrated/lead.

Rules of Civility is by the same author as "Gentleman.." and I think you'd like this a lot, female narrator/lead. Bonus: it works well as an audio book (although now that I've had a listen, I want a hard copy to re-"read" at some future time). Shorter than the other 2, I think. It's set in NYC in the late 1930s through a couple of decades, but mostly 1930s-early 1940s: "On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table."

All 3 books are about the same length, 300-400 pages. Depends what you might want in a read (or a listen). I think you would enjoy all 3. All of them have very excellent quips peppered throughout and are very well written, good stories.
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It should be noted that Ames and I share the same sense of humor. Kind of dry sardonic.

I don't know. I'm moody at the moment. And kind of hit the wall with the pandemic. I'm making myself wait until April to get a hair cut. But I want one now.

5. The Nevers Cast Previews the Series and Discusses the Vibe on the Set

They will be positive - it's a promotional article. Also Whedon only directed six episodes of a project he cast himself, and picked the crew and writers for. During a pandemic. He left it (allegedly) due to personal exhaustion. (I don't know, his announcement came on the heels of the Justice League investigation, and I honestly think he was ass hole on the Justice League shoot. But it was also a toxic situation long before he arrived, he just made it worse. And he had help - lots of help. Basically white boys being assholes. Typical Hollywood. On the Nevers, he surrounds himself with folks who keep him in check, and it's not a superhero film.)

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And The NEVERS trailer.

Whedon did direct all six episodes, and wrote two. They were supposed to have ten but Whedon left.

I'll probably check it out. I was considering skipping, but what the heck. It's free. I'm already paying for HBO Max.

In case you haven't figured it out by now? I've debated the whole Whedon thing with myself (and other people but mainly myself) in this journal for about two months now - and have come to the conclusion, that...he was guilty of everything they alleged. He was an asshole. He probably deserved whatever happened. They'd be a fool to hire him to show-run a television show, or direct a large scale film ever again.

But it's not my job to judge. Or my business for that matter. And it probably doesn't matter.

But I did learn stuff - so that's good.

People claim things are a waste of time? I don't think anything is - we learn from the silliest and craziest things.