#honorable mention to Wreck it Ralph which I also liked a lot

[elistodragonwings]

Ballister’s great, I love him, a refreshing new take on a character type I’ve not seen represented like this before…but…

…something feels…familiar…

Works hard to become a hero…

Wants to be loved and accepted by the public…

Wait…

Pushed to accept a sidekick…

No….

Rejected child needs love…

You’ve got to be kidding me…

How did I end up right back here again?!

[aurorawest]

T, U + Z?

Thank you!

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending, about anything at all

Hmm I definitely have dearly held head canons, but I’m not sure I would fight anyone over them! I suppose Loki being bi is one that I feel pretty strongly about. Stephen Strange too, I guess. I cannot see that man as anything but bi. I have a lot of head canons around Loki’s and Thor’s relationship too, mostly that they were always really close. No one will ever convince me that Loki hasn’t always looked up to Thor and worshipped him a little bit, and that he continues to love him fiercely despite the events of the MCU.

U - 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms

Weyoun from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, King Candy from Wreck-It Ralph, Megavolt from Darkwing Duck, Ben from LOST, and let’s say Root from Person of Interest, just so I don’t totally repeat a list from another meme I did recently!

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go (prompts optional but encouraged)

I asked my wife for what I should ramble about and she said ‘hairstyles’ so here we go. Loki’s hair. I will be ranking his hair in order of best to worst and I will not be taking questions (jk, this is not one of the fandom hills I would die on).

Ragnarok hair. I have waxed rhapsodic many times in the past. It’s so wavy—nay, curly at times. So soft. So pretty. It’s more natural while still being styled. You know that part after they do Get Help, and he has to like, flip that piece of hair out of his face? Ugh, love it.

Infinity War hair. Like Ragnarok hair, but stringy and disheveled and dirty because he was in a fight and is bloodied and beaten and hnnnnn yep.

Dungeon cell hair from TDW. I dig it Loki, and I also feel your pain. My hair looks like that too when I let it grow past my shoulders, and I’m not royalty so I don’t have time to style it every day. Also just kinda hot because you know that’s what it looks like when he’s, ahem, getting out of...bed.

Avengers hair. Mullety, yes, but he gets a pass for the fact that he’s dealing with a lot.

Regular (not dungeon) TDW hair. Idk guys, I just don’t care for it. It has no body. It makes his face look weird.

Thor 1 hair. No. Just no. He’s already a baby in this movie, the hair makes him look even younger.

Honorable mention to Strange’s hair, which I really like. In my fic, Loki also loves Strange’s hair, in particular where his bangs flop over his forehead, and it’s 100% because I like it.

Thanks again anon!!

These are from this meme. I would be delighted to get more!

[marcjampole]

Mainstream news media created the conditions in which a bottom-feeder like Trump could thrive by focusing on celebrity culture to encourage conspicuous consumption

AARP the Magazine is thus a small part of the giant propaganda machine that created the celebrity culture that created Donald Trump. It took from the first stirrings of consumer culture in the 1890’s until the 21st century for the focus on celebrity to pollute our marketplace of ideas enough for a toxic algae boom like Donald Trump to emerge (with apologies to algae blooms worldwide!). But unlike cleaning up the environment, saving our political discourse is conceptually easy—all the news media has to do is dedicate more of its feature coverage to those whose accomplishments can’t be measured by money made or spent, and cease to cover every issue like a reality show featuring celebrities. Not one big action, but a bunch of little actions are needed to stem the tide of celebrity culture. AARP could do its part by working into the mix a healthy share of scientists, historians, civic leaders, activists and literary figures into Big5-Oh and other parts of the magazine.

Those seeking to put the Trump phenomenon in a broader context will usually point out that his rhetoric and actions typically stay within the margins of 21st century Republican thought, especially as it concerns taxes, regulation, healthcare insurance, women’s health issues and white supremacy. Sometimes Trump has extended those margins with more outrageous versions of standard Republican fare. Others label Trumpism as the American version of the movement throughout the West to embrace ultranationalist, anti-immigration autocrats.

As insightful as these analyses are, they miss Trump’s cultural significance. Not only does Trump represent the bitterly racist and classist endgame of Ronald Reagan’s “politics of selfishness,” he also is the apotheosis of our cultural decline into celebrity-fueled consumerism. Remember that in the real world, Trump was a terrible and unethical businessperson who drove companies into bankruptcy six times; had at least a dozen failed business ventures based on his most valuable asset, his brand name; lost money for virtually all his investors; often lied to banks and governmental agencies; and has been sued by literally thousands of people for nonpayment or breach of contract. 

But while Trumpty-Dumpty was engaging in a one-man business wrecking crew he managed to get his name in the newspaper for his conspicuous consumption, his attendance at celebrity parties and his various marriage and romances. His television show was a hit, which reaped him even more publicity. But make no mistake about it, before he started his run for political office by promoting the vicious, racially tinged lie that Obama hails from Kenya, the public recognized Trump primarily for the attributes he shared with the British royal family, the Kardashians, Gosselins, Robertsons, the housewives of New Jersey, Atlanta, South Beach and elsewhere, Duane Chapman, Betheny Frankel, Paris Hilton and the rest of the self-centered lot of rich and famous folk known only for being rich and famous and spending obnoxious sums of money.

Trump’s celebrity status always hinted at his master-of-the-universe skills in business and “The Apprentice” never missed an opportunity to reinforce that false myth. Thus, whereas the business world recognized Donald Trump as the ultimate loser, celebrity culture glorified him as one of the greatest business geniuses in human history. It was this public perception of Trump—completely opposite of reality—that gave him the street cred he needed to attract unsophisticated voters. Trump is completely a creation of celebrity culture.

When we consider the general intellectual, moral and cultural climate of an era—the Zeitgeist, which in German means the “spirit of the age”—we often focus on defining events such as presidential assassinations, Woodstock, the moon landing, 9/11, the election of the first non-white president. But a Zeitgeist comprises thousands upon thousands of specific events, trends and personal choices. 

Which brings us—finally—to the subject of this article, AARP the Magazine, the semi-monthly slick magazine of the American Association of Retired People (AARP). The magazine usually uses celebrities and celebrity culture to give tips on personal finances, health, careers, relationships, retirement and lifestyle to its members, people over the age of 50. Because AARP membership rolls is so enormous, I have no doubt that AARP is one of the four or five most well-read periodicals in the United States.

Now AARP the organization must have many qualms about Trump and Trumpism. Trump has already rolled back consumer protections that prevent seniors from being taken advantage of by both big businesses and small-time con artists. Trump is vowing to dedicate his second term to cutting Social Security and Medicare, two programs of utmost importance to the well-being of AARP’s members. The leadership of AARP certainly understands that Trump’s cruelly aggressive effort to end immigration from non-European countries is the main cause for the growing shortages of the home care workers so vital to many if not most people in their final years. They must also realize that a tariff war affects people on fixed incomes the most.

What AARP leaders—of the organization and magazine—show no signs of understanding is that they played a role in creating the monster. The focus of AARP the Magazine and the other AARP member publication on promoting celebrity culture helped to create the playing field that Trump dominates—that shadow land of aspirations for attention and materialism in which all emotional values reduce to buying and consumption and our heroes have either done nothing to deserve their renown or have worked in the mass entertainment industries of TV, movies, sports and pop music.  

As an example of how celebrity culture permeates and controls the aspirational messages of AARP the Magazine, let’s turn to the feature on the last page of every issue, something called “Big5-Oh”: Big5-Oh always has a paragraph story with photos of a famous person who is turning 50 sometime during the two months covered by the issue. The bottom third of the page consists of one-sentence vignettes with head-and-shoulder photos of famous people turning 50, 60, 70 and 80. The copy typically describes something the famous person is doing that demonstrates she or he is continuing to thrive and do great things despite advancing age.

I’ve seen Big5-Oh in every issue of AARP I have ever read, and I have perused each issue for about 18 years. And in every issue, the famous people mentioned are virtually all celebrities, by which I mean actors, pop musicians, sports stars and those known only for being known like the Kardashians and Snooki. Only quite rarely a film director, popular writer or scientist sneaks in.

The latest issue, covering August and September 2019 exemplifies the celebrity-driven approach that hammers home the idea that only celebrities matter (since it’s only their birthdays and ages that are seemed worth memorializing). The featured person turning 50 is Tyler Perry, an actor and writer-director. The smaller features include four actor, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jason Alexander, Richard Gere and Lilly Tomlin, plus the athlete Magic Johnson and the rock star Bruce Springsteen.

Not one scientist, not one historian or sociologist. Not one civic leader, politician, physician, novelist, poet or classical or jazz musician. No astronaut, architect or engineer. I did a little cursory research to come up with a reconceived Big5-Oh for August and September 2019: The big feature, always about someone turning 50, could be the chess player Ben Finegold, the best-selling but much scandalized popular writer James Frey or the filmmaker Noah Baumbach. That’s pretty much a wash with Tyler Perry. If I were editor of this feature, I would probably still pick Tyler Perry over this competition. 

But when we get to people who turned 60 and 70 during these months, you realize how much celebrity culture guided the editor’s choice of subjects: ignored are the designer Michael Kors, the current governor of Virginia Ralph Northam, the distinguished Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, the even more distinguished journalist James Fallows, the important literary novelists Jane Smiley, Martin Amis and Jonathan Franzen, the leader of the Irish Green Party, astronaut Scott Altman and Beverly Barnes, the first woman to captain a Boeing 747. All these people are non-celebrities and all have made more significant and lasting contributions to America than the people the column’s editor selected, with the possible exception of Magic Johnson and Bruce Springsteen. 

What’s more significant, though, is including some of these people instead of all celebrities would make an important message about what we value in our society. It would say that we honor the intellectual contributions of our writers, scientists, knowledge professionals and civic leaders. The fact that AARP always selects celebrities for Big5-Oh and tends to build other stories and features around celebrities makes the opposite message about value—that all that matters is the gossip surrounding celebrities and the promotion of celebrity culture.  

Now AARP shares the blame for our culture’s emphasis on shallow consumerism and superficial celebrities with many of our cultural organizations and educational institutions. For example, the political reporting of the mainstream media reduces all political discourse to celebrity terms—name-calling, who is feuding with whom, who’s winning in the polls, the skeleton-closet scandals of the candidates’ families, which celebrities love and hate them, zingers and misstatements, the candidates’ theme songs and other main themes of celebrity culture. Notice that Trump is as much a master in these endeavors as he is an inexperienced and ignorant buffoon in matters related to governance such as policy, history, the inner workings of the government and the scientific research informing governmental decisions. Note, too, that based on how much ink and space is given to endorsements by the media, in the hierarchy of value, celebrities rate above elected officials who rate above unions, business and scientific organizations and luminaries in fields other than entertainment. 

[misterstarkidontfeeltoogood-blog]

My Top Movies of 2018

Honorable mentions- Wreck it Ralph 2; Ralph Breaks the internet, Solo, Mamma Mia Here We Go Again.

It’s also important to note a few movies I didn’t see this year that could very well be on this list- Hereditary, Bohemian Rhapsody, Grinch, The Hate u Give, MI: Fallout.

20. The Spy Who Dumped Me (directed by Susanna Fogel)- Honestly, this movie was fucking hilarious. Probably my top true comedy of the year. The plot was nothing special but it was exciting and funny from start to finish.

19. Adrift (directed by Baltasar Kormákur)- I feel like this movie was really overlooked! It was a beautiful story of love and survival and the cast was brilliant (and attractive). Very aesthetically pleasing as well. 

18. Fantastic Beasts; The Crimes of Grindelwald (directed by David Yates)- This movie got a lot of backlash from critics, but I personally really enjoyed it. I loved the characters, and the plot was very intriguing to me! Great plot twist at the end. I enjoyed this much more than the original Fantastic Beasts. I also got a lot of nostalgia from this movie, with the Hogwarts scenes.

17. Venom (directed by Ruben Fleischer)- Although only Aquaman (yikes) is below this on my list of superhero movies this year, I still really enjoyed Venom! 2018 DELIVERED with superhero movies. Tom Hardy was incredible and so hot like wow.. Good ratio of humor to action.

16. Crazy Rich Asians (directed by Jon Chu)- Okay I typically HATE rom-coms, but this was sooo good! The cast was INCREDIBLE, and the story wasn’t too predictable. It was also so aesthetically pleasing and discussed a lot about Asian culture which is awesome!

15. Christopher Robin (directed by Marc Forster)- So much nostalgia oh my god. I cried in the theater lol. So cute and such a good message. The cast was great (LOVED Hayley Atwell).

14. A Simple Favor (directed by Paul Feig)- This was so underrated. Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively were fucking amazing, and the story was so unpredictable! This reminded me of Gone Girl, but funnier and not quite as dark. Definitely kept me entertained the whole time.

13. Black Panther (directed by Ryan Coogler)- One of the best MCU movies. The cast was amazing and it introduced some of my favorite characters in the MCU. Honestly, MCU blessed us this year.

12. Incredibles 2 (directed by Brad Bird)- One of the few sequels that I liked better than the original. So funny and entertaining. Pixar could shit out anything and I would love it, but this was one of my favorites in recent years.

11. Ant Man and the Wasp (directed by Peyton Reed)- Probably the most slept on MCU film. Paul Rudd is gold and Evangeline Lilly worked perfectly with them. Fucking hilarious and so pure. Also, the post credit scene gave me chills. 

10. Love, Simon (directed by Greg Berlanti)- I cried a lot in this one too. So important for LGBT youth for them to get a teenage love story that received mainstream media attention. The cast was great and it was so cheesy and I loved it. This book is fabulous too! 

9. Deadpool 2 (directed by David Leitch)- This was just as good as the first one. Ryan Reynolds is perfect as Deadpool and all of the meta references were amazing. Full of so many good cameos. 

8. Boy Erased (directed by Joel Edgerton)- One of the most (if not the most) important films of the year. I shamelessly cried in the theater. Helped me see the horrors of conversion therapy. As a gay christian, this movie hit home and was executed perfectly. Lucas Hedges and Nicole Kidman were especially amazing. I hope this one wins some awards.

7. Eighth Grade (directed by Bo Burnham)- Another one deserving of awards, and another one that made me cry in the theater. Elsie Fisher was just breathtaking. An important movie for anyone who has ever felt alienated or different growing up. 

6. Spider Man: Into the Spiderverse (directed by Peter Ramsey, Robert Persichetti Jr., Rodney Rothman)- This movie was such a pleasant surprise. The animation was simply phenomenal. I think it will really change the future of animated movies. Miles Morales is such a good Spider Man. I can’t say enough good things about this movie. 

5. A Quiet Place (directed by John Krasinski)- This was really groundbreaking for the horror genre. Soooo damn suspenseful and exciting. The lack of sound is really something that can’t be done again, and it’s something that you have to experience in the theater. John Krasinski and Emily Blunt were breathtaking. 

4. Mary Poppins Returns (directed by Rob Marshall)- So much nostalgia and sentiments in this movie. Disney really killed it with this one. Again, Emily Blunt was amazing, and Lin-Manuel Miranda was fantastic. Lots of good cameos, and the music was just incredible. So visually appealing. Made me cry in theaters. 

3. A Star is Born (directed by Bradley Cooper)- Lady Gaga was fucking incredible in this. Her voice, her acting, her everything. I will be pissed if she doesn’t get best actress. So tragic yet beautiful. The music was breathtaking, and it reflected the story so beautifully. 

2. Bad Times at the El Royale (directed by Drew Goddard)- Hands down, the most underrated film of the year. The story was so unique and intriguing. The characters were amazing and portrayed by incredible actors. The music and cinematography complimented the story line so well. I could honestly go on and on about this movie. It’s a shame that it probably won’t receive any awards.

1. Infinity War (directed by the Russo brothers)- Definitely the movie I’ve seen the most in 2018. Getting to see all my favorite characters come together (and most of them die lol) was like nothing I’ve seen before in a movie. I was not expecting to leave the theater on probably the biggest cliffhanger in cinematic history. This culmination of 18 (I think) movies was damn good. Also, probably the best and most exciting post-credit scene in history. 

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael After Midnight: Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You?

So here’s a neat little bit of trivia: back in the 80s, my grandmother actually had her own video store. Obviously a little indie video store wasn’t gonna survive competition from something like Blockbuster or all the other options that began popping up around the time, so she ended up closing it, and my parents ended up with a lot of the VHS tapes, which of course I ended up watching. A lot of my favorite films and movies I’m really nostalgic for came from those VHS tapes, such as Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer, InHumanoids: The Movie, and Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend - all great candidates for reviews. Frankly, not sure why I haven’t reviewed InHumanoids already… but I digress. I bring this all up because there is one specific VHS I want to talk about.

But first, let’s talk about Dr. Seuss.

Dr. Seuss, as you may know, is one of the greatest children’s authors of all time. The guy churned out classic after classic, creating timeless works featuring wondrous landscapes, fantastical locales, and colorful characters like the Lorax, the Grinch, and the Cat in the Hat. He’s also known for having extremely crappy films based off of his books, but that wasn’t always the case; back in the day, Seuss worked on animated specials based on his stuff, working with everyone from Chuck Jones to Ralph Bakshi. Dr. Seuss was truly a creative genius whose works have stood the test of time.

[Except this one]

Tonight’s work is one that is actually not based on any sort of preexisting book, and was one of those bizarre VHS tapes I watched over and over as a child. And tonight’s work is one that I’m not going to review in the traditional sense; oh no, this one is getting something special. Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You? is akin to Freddie as F.R.0.7. in my mind as something it is far more fun to just explain than to truly dissect, so instead of a true review, I am going to do a sort of recap of the plot before giving you a verdict on whether this insane special is worth your time.

So, let’s get right into this:

Pontoffel Pock, our titular hero, has a job at a pickle factory, and he has the simplest job you could possibly imagine: he pushes the lever “Pushum” and pulls on the chain “Pullum” and the pickles go into the jar (as the song helpfully informs us. Oh yeah, this is a musical. That’s somewhat important). So with such a simple job, it would be pretty inconceivable to fuck it up, right? Well, that’s because you are most likely not a colossal failure on the level of Pontoffel Pock, who SOMEHOW confuses the Pushum and Pullum and ends up destroying the entire factory, which leads to him getting fired. Did I mention this was his first day and immediately before fucking up he was explained what his job was?

[You had ONE fucking job, Pontoffel Pock]

Dejected and alone, Pock goes home and plays basketball on his roof as an homage to Clerks. Please ignore that this animation came out nearly two decades before Clerks. I would like to take a moment to point out that Pock’s house is exactly as weird and impractical a homestead as any you might see in a Seuss work - and the fact it’s a dilapidated mess because Pock can’t hold down a job only makes it even more odd. In his misery and sorrow, Pock wishes he could get away from it all… and he gets his chance, because the Amalgamated Do-Gooding Fairies come down from the heavens and grant him a magical flying piano that will take him anywhere in the world if he plays the proper notes (C, C, C, D, D#, E, for those wondering).

Gifted with this incredible magical gift, and with the entire world at his disposal, Pontoffel Pock does what any normal human being would do: he shows off and acts like a douchebag. Teleporting to Groogen, a sort of German-Switzerland mashup country, Pock freaks the locals out with his flying piano, and gets shot down by their paint cannon known as the Goomy Gun, because nothing in a Dr. Seuss work can have a normal name. Pock returns home, and naturally McGillicuddy, the head fairy, is pissed as fuck at Pock for being a douchey show-off and nearly wrecking the piano right off the bat.

[Dunno what he expected from the moron who wrecked a pickle factory]

Thankfully, McGillicuddy is a kind and merciful fairy, a bit more Seelie than Unseelie. He gives Pock one more chance, so the question now becomes: How can Pock fuck this up? Well let’s find out as he travels to Casbahmopolis, the Seuss version of the Middle East. Considering what a colossal moron Pock is, it should surprise absolutely no one that he falls in love with the first scantily clad belly dancer woman he sees; that girl is Neefa Feefa, who contrary to the previous sentence is NOT a belly dancer, but rather an… eyeball dancer. No, she doesn’t dance on eyeballs, she’s just dressed in an outfit that covers everything but her eyes. It’s kind of an amusing parody of belly dancers.

[Behold, the greatest waifu of all time]

Lucky for Pock, Neefa Feefa is the only woman in the world as stupid as him, and she immediately falls for him as well. Unfortunately, she’s stuck fucking dancing for the king, a job she hates, and she wishes she could get away from it all. To her credit, she actually has a real, genuine reason to want to get out of her current position, unlike Pontoffel “First World Problems” Pock. Pock seems to realize this, and in one of his exceedingly rare moments of badassery, singlehandedly infiltrates the palace of the king to save this girl he barely knows. Sure, it’s stupid and cliche, but so far Pock has been nothing but be a showboating weenie; here he goes Solid Snaking his way through a palace full of armed guards to save a woman, that takes some pretty big balls.

Of course, this is Pontoffel Pock we’re talking about; he manages to fuck things up somehow. The guards manage to bust the Homing Pigeon Switch of his piano, which would allow him to zap right back to the dump he calls a house, and when he tries to go somewhere else Neefa Feefa slips into the clutches of the guards and the piano goes on the fritz, leading Pock to desperately try any keys he can in an attempt to get back. At this time, the fairies are getting worried, seeing as they haven’t heard from Pock in ages, and so set out on a massive manhunt to find him, singing “Pontoffel Pock, Where the Fuck Heck Are You?” This is the part where our hero finally triumphs. Pock suddenly out of the blue remembers the proper switch and zaps back to save his imprisoned beloved, so of course… he crashes the piano into the tower.

[Pictured: A man who can do literally nothing right]

Neefa Feefa sends out a prayer, and thankfully it is heard by the fairies, who descend from the heavens and save everyone’s ass. Pontoffel Pock’s quest to get some poon seemingly impresses the boss at the pickle factory, because not only is Pock rehired, but Neefa Feefa gets hired there too, and apparently the dress codes are extremely lax there as she gets to wear her eyeball dancer outfit to work. Pock manages to get away scot free despite fucking everything up and manages to get a hot girl and a stable job, so I guess the moral of the story is “Going to great lengths to get pussy will make up for all of your constant fuckups.”

[Huh. I guess The Lorax was right]

So that was Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You? and I think it goes without saying this is one weird, quirky, and unique animated story. It’s not very long and is a bit corny and cliche, and the shortness doesn’t do much favors to the story as it leads to things feeling a bit rushed, but quite frankly it all adds to the silly, Seussy charm. The animation, the designs, and just all the wacky creativity on display here is Seuss at his best, and frankly it’s hard to hate a story of a man who fucks up his pickle factory job and gets a magical flying piano from fairies so that he can score with a belly dancer.

I really wish this was more well-known than it is. God knows this deserves it. It’s just so charmingly weird. If you like weird and silly animated things or the work of Dr. Seuss, this is something to check out, though if you’re a huge fan of the latter you may already know this. I don’t think this is really something that deserves to be held up alongside the greats like The Grinch or The Lorax, but I think it deserves an honorable 3rd place alongside those two; this is an underrated obscure gem if there ever was one.

Now I’m going to sit back and pray that this review becomes popular enough to get people to draw Neefa Feefa porn.

[Real talk: This is the only reason I wrote this review]