ThaOGDreamWeaver

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

Tiny new bit: Target getting their sponsorship in early, with a rather nice little introduction to Riri:

So: the great heroes and villains of our time tend to have something - or someone - that their performers use as a handle or key to get into the role. For Hannibal Lecter, Tony Hopkins used lizards and one of his beloved pet cats. (Note how rarely he blinks in the prison scenes.) Chadwick drew on assorted Shakespearean kings and their actors for the gentle gravitas of T'Challa. And then... well, there's this guy. Any others that would be good to know about?

I tend to write ones that make me laugh (and a hopefully few other people too). My toons include a Paragon U student who got into a drunken bet in the High Energy Physics lab (never a good idea), the world's toughest Parks & Rec Ranger (in Paragon, keeping people off the grass is important - so is keeping the grass off people), and an innocent lab hamster bitten by a radioactive accordion player. On a side note, though: my core, pre-Sunset and reborn core toon is openly LGBT (which I'd like to be realtime, but, family). This - and the confidence I project as that toon - has led to more than one person coming out to me. And, well, talking through all That Stuff, and family, and work, and how people deal (or don't), have been some of the most emotional experiences I've had. Even if I have no idea where they are realtime, and we're sitting wearing ridiculous costumes on the roof of a building in Steel, sharing that kind of human connection is... a thing.

Clannad - Hourglass RIP Noel Duggan🎸

No kidding. As to the rest: There might not have been quite enough smashing (Matt Murdock aside), and the final ending felt a tiny bit flat. But all in all, Shulkie has been done right by. EDIT: one final thought:

Queen + Adam Lambert - Who Wants To Live Forever? (IoW Festival, June 13, 2016)