ThaOGDreamWeaver

Jerry Lee Lewis & Friends - Great Balls Of Fire ☄️ RIP The Killer…

Could be fun. BTW, we have an official explanation for why Yoda and Yaddle sound different. Yaddle is roughly 400 years younger, and Yoda never bothered to learn modern Galactic Basic. So he's speaking the equivalent of Chaucer-era English... ...not, in any way, that it's just a pain in the backside to script and play and gets in the way of the story.

Liked it, though wouldn't say essential. Feels like Filoni and co doodling in around the edges. Did give a little more scale and scope to Dooku - perhaps what Christopher Lee would have deserved to be acting with. Did love Ahsoka getting her own Spaghetti Western-style badassery music in Ep6, and the almost disdainful way she dealt with the problem. Hopefully she gets something that good for her own series. If I had a thought...

Unfortunately a Sky exclusive in the UK, PTerry’s Carnegie award winning book gets an all-star cast flick, starring Hugh Laurie, Emilia Clarke, and Peter Serafinowicz as THE GUY WHO TALKS LIKE THIS.

So, another setup episode... Do we think this pays off next week? Will either side figure out where Cassian is - or miss him by inches?

Neil Gaiman & The FourPlay String Quartet - Bloody Sunrise

Gingerly reopening this jar of rookery whelps for some financial and directorial news. WB-D have just apprised investors of a $4.2bn (OUCH) writedown charge to their current assets. Movies and streaming not being the high-margin business they used to be, this now leaves a $50bn debt load, a reduced $9bn profit target (so now 5.5 to 1 loan gearing - not good), and only $30bn in market cap (the value of the company based on share price). That's not healthy. As the FT article says, bad news doesn't age well, so dumping all of it into one financial year and betting on a good turnaround is a good trick. But I'm not seeing them gel into a slick moneymaking machine they promised the markets any time soon. Black Adam at least is a palpable hit ($147m to date), though not anything like the size of a pre-pandemic Marvel blockbuster - and only roughly on par with Love And Thunder ($144m). They'd better have a hell of a slate coming up... ...which they just might do, having just hired James Gunn as creative director of DC Studios, a new entity - WB-D will write off and shutter the previous DC Films unit and rebuild corporate structures from scratch. Reliable big-budget producer Peter Safran (Shazam, Aquaman, The Conjuring, The Suicide Squad) will handle the business end of things. Unless there's some kind of major falling-out with Zaslav (entirely possible), Gunn will be exclusive to DC for the next four years, with only the Holiday Special and GOTG3 (now in post-prod) left on the Marvel slate. It's a bold move, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for them.

Kenny Loggins - Footloose

...in which Drax and Mantis try to cheer a morose and lonely Starlord up by bringing him a very special gift for Christmas. Yup. Watchin' this one.

Supplemental and SPOILER:

Here we go. The new era begins... with Epic Trailer Elton John?

Been reading the FT for a while for this reason. Mainly because (a) I need to for work, to talk to shareholders in City jargon. (If you don't speak a language, hit the papers.) For (b), they're owned out of Japan these days so no Murdoch risks, they like facts, and can get sued if they get stuff wrong. But for (c)... they still do investigations. Proper ones. Even ones that would scare the hell out of normal people. Suggest you watch the actual flick without spoilering yourself.

Will give it a look when it’s on DTV. Can heartily recommend Shazam, which Zach Levi owns… …and even addresses the one weakness Marvel has (weakly plotted, usually “evil doppelgänger” villains, as correctly mocked by She-Hulk.) Sivana has a half-decent backstory, a different power source and set, and uses them… the film isn’t afraid to go darrrrk enough to scare kids - eg the boardroom scene. Black Adam’s reviewers have not been kind, evidently, but a popcorn flick’s a popcorn flick and the audiences still seem to dig it.

Nicholas Britell - ¡Niamos! (Morlana Club Mix)

It's a lift from old-school fashy fashion, so gives you that same visual cue - but I'd have skipped it. Imperial and WW2 German army officer uniforms used old-school flared-hip riding jodhpurs, so they'd fit properly with the jackboots. TBH they looked pretty silly back then as well, but don't they have Lycra in space? Chasing down rebels and getting foiled by a closing lift? Imperial Hammer Time aside, I'm down TW's comment (within the spoiler, but not a spoiler) that wardrobe excel themselves even with minor characters. Everything's rich with detail that tells you who they are and what they do, even what they mean - compare the clinical white of ISB to the shabby, tacky blue/orange of the corp HojoTroopers. That uniform discipline is pristine on Coruscant and slacking on a backwater base. Perrin's self-aggrandising MASSIVE BROOCHES and manspreading robe. Vel, both pre- and post- glow-up - that radical shift shows you how much of a chameleon she really is. Cassian's Miami Beach rig. Even down to Syril's manager's ridiculous pootling clip-on tie. Spoilery stuff ahoy:

Apoptygma Berzerk - Love Never Dies

The Beatles - Glass Onion

The Beatles - Come Together

My comments in bold...

James - Sit Down (Final Version)

Wonder Stuff - Don't Let Me Down (Gently)

Jesus Jones - Info Freako