Strange Confluence

It seems like everything has been happening this week. Barbie announced a new Anna May Wong doll that quickly sold out, though Mattel claims they are sending more inventory out to stores. The Writer's Guild started their strike on Tuesday. In Texas, Colin Allred announced his run for Ted Cruz's Senate Seat. Then came the expected Cinco de Cuatro/Star Wars Day and Cinco De Mayo, and now King Charles's coronation in the UK. Also Texas is having municipal elections today (The early voting was last week up until May 2.) All these events packed together is a little overwhelming.

More on the Anna May Wong doll--I like the concept and the gesture for Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month, but when I look at the pictures, I don't see that much resemblance to the real lady. Yes it has Wong's bang haircut, but something about the eyes and the shape of her lips is off. Her eyes should be much bigger, and again I hate the too skinny arms of the Gigi-articulated doll in general. It's creepy and almost skeletal. So I won't buy it, especially not for the high price it's going for on Ebay now. Better to leave the stock to other buyers who want the doll more. Instead I bought a DVD of two Anna May Wong movies, which just arrived last night. I'm excited to watch it.

Edited to add: Actually I love Made to Move Barbies. They have strong joints. Apparently the name for the Barbie articulation I don't like is the Gigi body, which was used on the Gigi Hadid doll. It's the elbows I hate, and the knee joints are also different from Made to Move. Here there is an example on this Barbie post from the Toy Box Philospher. Search for the comparision photo between Lena and Barbie. I don't know why, but the Gigi body is often used for collector Barbies and the arms especially are anemic and spindly.

Voting Matters

Early voting has started for the May 6th election. I'll have to do it this weekend but it's still hard to find any information on candidates in local elections. School board elections are supposed to be nonpartisan, but how do you find out who's a transphobic nutjob trying to ban books and censor history? Only a few candidates have websites, and/or answer questions for the League of Women Voters' guide, so it's hard to actually know how they will act on the school board. It seems like Patriot Mobile is the rightwing PAC funding shitty candidates, but I can't find any listing for the election I actually vote in.

I don't want to elect a rightwing lunatic to a City Council position either. At the very least, I want to vote out anybody who voted against a bus system and who proudly brings this up at every election. "If we had voted for the bus, then we wouldn't have this, and this.." It's not something to be proud of, you idiot. So we didn't get the bus then; what's stopping us from trying to get a bus deal now? Is it you, you fucking idiot?

Meanwhile a longtime election administrator in Tarrant County has resigned due to the Republican judge undermining him and alleging voter fraud. If the election system was so corrupt, then why did you accept the results of your own damn election, huh? *sigh* Texas politics is so disheartening, but we gotta keep fighting.

Edited to Add a news link that came too late for early voting, which is not helpful at all for voters.

Hypernostalgia

Movies seem to be all about nostalgia lately, whether it's for video games or music or sports of a previous era. I've never played any Mario Brothers, so I didn't want to see that movie. That didn't leave much choice among the remaining options. I used to watch the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon as a kid, but never played the game, so I wasn't interested in the movie, when it was clear that the characters had no relation to the TV show. I didn't feel like getting into another blockbuster franchise either. But reviews said it was fun and that Hugh Grant was the villain, so I tried it, at least to see Rege Jean Page as the Paladin. It was all right, but mostly the characters were meh, and the movie was so long. It seemed to drag, and the quest became meandering. Hugh Grant is a bad guy, but he's not the main villain; he's a secondary villain on the way to the Big Bad, like he was in the recent Operation Fortune.

The Paladin character was supercool, like a heroic knight who could do no wrong, but he was only there for part of the quest. I liked that the main characters were friends/co-parents, rather than love interests, and there was a cool cameo of the TV show characters in one scene. But otherwise, the plot was overshadowed by the jokey tone. Overall I didn't care for it.

So then I tried the movie Air, even though I don't care about sports or Nike. I find the whole "sneaker culture" strange and crazy to spend so much on shoes. Still, Air got good reviews and had Jason Bateman in a non-douchey role as a marketing exec. The drama was interesting, but the movie was stuffed full of 1980s songs. Like every two minutes another tune would start. I love the '80s but this was too much. Annoying and distracting in fact. It's okay to sometimes end the scene on silence, or even an instrumental score, instead of a pop tune. If you want to make a jukebox movie, make one. Don't stuff it into a different movie about sports and marketing. Viola Davis was good, as expected.

It just made me more excited for Chevalier when I saw a trailer for it. Hope that will be better than this lackluster fare.

Barbie Mania

Passover has begun so apparently Easter is this weekend, and the usual "faith" movies are out. I was hoping to see Chevalier, but apparently it doesn't arrive in my area until April 20th.

Thankfully the new Barbie trailer is out, showing more shots of Barbieland as well as a glimpse of the real world. It's so pink, and Barbie has feet permanently stuck in high-heel position, just like the dolls! I was right when I guessed that there are multiple Barbies and Kens. They also released character posters, and apparently a Barbie Selfie generator so people can put in their own selfies or celebrity photos into posters. It's fun, though concerning that everything is becoming AI.

The elections in Wisconsin and Chicago were good this week, but there was bad news in North Carolina, when a Democrat suddenly switched parties. At least Trump got arraigned.

Spring has sprung

Well it's the last day of March, and March Madness should finally end soon. We've had the spring equinox with rains and I've already seen bluebonnets along the highway. I've seen some campaign signs indicating that there will be city elections in May, so I'll have to look into early voting for that.

I've recently figured out how to get AppleTV+ on my Tivo Stream device so I can watch shows on my big TV. That has been a help for me to watch new shows and movies when I didn't want to see all the basketball. There haven't been many movies I wanted to see in theaters lately, so I'll have to hope for more in April I guess.

I've continued reading books and found a new series called "Black Orchid Enterprises" about a group of college friends deciding to start a business and move into one house together in small town Texas. They also have an ABBA tribute band with a fourth friend who often visits. Pretty fun for a contemporary setting, and it's cool to see a part-Vietnamese character in a book.

The Ides of March

Yesterday was Pi day, which non-mathematicians know about now due to pizza places doing sales. But none of my coworkers got the reference when I said "beware the Ides of March." It's not exactly a holiday, I guess, but I used to take Latin in high school and of course read Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in school.

The Oscars were on Sunday, and this time I was interested due to Everything Everywhere All At Once's many nominations. So I half watched the awards while doing other stuff and was mostly pleased by the wins. (Though I still think Stephanie Hsu deserved the Oscar more than Jamie Lee Curtis. People argue that "she's young, she has time to win later" and "they're rewarding Curtis for her whole career." But I find that whole argument silly, because it creates situations like "the Oscars owe Angela Bassett for that Tina Turner movie" and new people getting overlooked for outstanding work because the Academy is rewarding other stars for things "owed" in the past. It's a terrible cycle.) Ke Huy Quan was wonderful, and the industry seemed to like the nostalgia and comeback story in rewarding Brendan Fraser in his controversial Whale movie too. Me, I was wanting to see Fraser in that Batgirl movie that was axed so cruelly.

I was also surprised by a number of Indians winning awards for RRR and a documentary called The Elephant Whisperers. They gave good speeches, and I liked the guy who sang The Carpenters. It's a good year for diversity in general. People online are arguing that Michelle Yeoh's win was not an Asian first due to Merle Oberon and different definitions of "Asian." I would argue that any mixed race winners who passed for white had an advantage over stars like Anna May Wong who were shut out of good roles due to their race being more plain to see. You can't win an Oscar, if the industry won't cast you in any worthwhile roles. Hopefully things are changing now.

I did like seeing the new trailer for The Little Mermaid, but am surprised that ABC actually made it part of the Oscars show, instead of playing it during the commercial break. That's a little weird and pushy for Disney. But corporations are for greed, not artistic integrity.