News of the World

Trump finally signed the bill he threatened to veto, but I think the Democrats will still try to vote for $2000 checks. I think the national defense bill is still vetoed, but I thought Congress passed that with a veto-proof majority? It's all confusing to me. Just want this chaos administration over with so he can stop wreaking havoc on everything for petty reasons. The Georgia senate runoffs are January 5, but I believe that early voting has already started.

Weirdly, my local radio station is still playing Christmas music. Are they going to keep doing it through New Year's, like some people wait to take their Christmas lights down?

Anyway I watched Tom Hanks in News of the World, but found it quite slow going and just liked hearing a lot of place names from Texas that I knew. Apparently the movie cut out some stuff from the book, such as Captain Kidd already having daughters in another state, and it makes the dramatic choice to have Johanna's original escort be lynched, rather than alive and able to hand her off to Kidd voluntarily. There's not much political nuance; much of the conflict is implied by locals complaining about the Union Blues not helping them with floods and Indians. And they rail against federal news about 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution, but it's like they're any generic deep South racists. The Kiowa don't have any speaking parts, just floating in and out of some scenes in the distance or during a sandstorm. Johanna speaks Kiowa, subtitled, but no one understands her until a white boarding house woman translates for her, then Johanna starts learning English from Kidd. So again a Western marginalizes Native Americans and doesn't let them have a say. Kidd just seems weary of all war and all killing, and wishes other people would stop being violent. When he mourns his dead wife, he confesses to his childhood friend that he thinks God has cursed him for his actions in the Civil war. The character John Calley has a few scenes and then leaves, with no hint of him returning to the story later. It's a bit muddled.

Wonder Woman 1984

So I watched the sequel on streaming, and I'm meh on it. It was nice seeing Steve Trevor again, but boy was his "resurrection" weird. Couldn't the magic of the Dreamstone bring him back to life without his soul/spirit taking over another man's body? Was it Quantum Leap style, where the original guy was off in a waiting room somewhere, or was he aware of being possessed, but helpless to stop Steve using his body for sex and everything else? Why the fuck would Patty Jenkins choose this creepy way to bring back Steve? And how come, in none of the arguments about renouncing the Dreamstone wishes, did Steve ever argue "I can't stay here forever, stealing this man's life from him"? Plus, the scene of Steve trying on different clothes just dragged way too long beyond being funny.

Meanwhile, I didn't much like either villain. Cheetah starting out being "Hollywood ugly" and teenage awkward, only to turn evil after she got her powers, was lame and trite. Plus she greedily got two wishes because she wished on the Dreamstone, then Maxwell Lord granted an extra wish after he got the powers. Most of the time, it seemed that Lord could only give one wish per person, which we saw when his son Alistair made a second wish during the TV broadcast. Speaking of which, it was stupid and hand-wavey for the satellite broadcast to somehow let Lord literally "touch" everyone with "particles". That's not how broadcasting works, no matter how the White House staff explain things in layman's terms to the President. It's not like any TV anchor can literally touch any viewer watching his/her news show.

Relapsed Carnivore

I tried for a while to be more vegetarian and meat-free lately due my fear that the meat industry was full of COVID, especially the stories about Tyson plants. Plus all the Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger stuff was in fashion, and that just made me realize that I could eat tofu and other soy-based products for a cheap alternative. Like any Asian American, I have lots of experience with tofu from childhood, so I don't avoid it like the plague. (Many white Americans seem to think tofu is terrible, but I'm sure they haven't had it cooked right. Of course it tastes bland when raw. That's the whole point of tofu--to have no flavor until you add your desired flavor to it! Then it'll soak up flavor wonderfully.)

So as I said, I tried going more meatless for a while, but I still felt hungry. And I couldn't often get to the Vietnamese grocery store to buy tofu or other stuff for recipes. But now I read an article (maybe it was on Vox) talking about how the soy industry is terrible for climate too, because farmers feed soy to their animals. So eating soy is no better than eating meat? I give up. I'll still be cautious about meat and boycott the hell out of Tyson, but I guess I'll alternate tofu with meat when I have a craving.

Happy Boxing Day

I had to work on Christmas, but had time afterward to watch the Italian live-action Pinocchio; it was dubbed in English with no subtitles, but the speakers had Italian accents. To be clear, this is the movie with Roberto Benigni as Geppetto; I didn't realize that Disney also has a new Pinocchio with Tom Hanks, and apparently Netflix is planning a Pinocchio too. Suddenly the puppet is in fashion.

Happy Solstice

I tried to see the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction tonight, but either the sky was too cloudy or even suburban lights are too bright to let me see "stars" in my area. I saw the moon and a fixed star up in the sky, but my constellation app said that was too high in the sky to be Jupiter. I guess it must have been Altair. I hope other people had more luck.

I was annoyed, though, that radio DJs kept calling it the "Christmas star" rather than the conjunction. If anything it should be the Solstice star. Winter festivals have always been centered around the solstice, before Christians absorbed the pagan customs for Christmas. Molly of Denali had an episode this year where Trini's birthday coincided with the solstice, so she got to enjoy festival fireworks that night.

Hopefully the year ahead will be better. Biden got his first vaccine shot today, and his administration will takeover Covid vaccine distribution in January. Also, due to legal threats, Fox News this weekend had to air fact-check videos to debunk all their election conspiracy mongering.

Content is King

Anyway, Disney decided to dump a lot of news on their investor day. They're ordering various Star Wars series, Marvel series, and animated TV shows for Disney+ so they'll be raising their price in March to pay for all this new content. I would be interested in the Lando series, but I don't really care about more obscure Star Wars characters. I guess it's not surprising for Disney to order Moana, Tiana and Zootopia tv shows, because there was a time in the 1990s when Disney had multiple Saturday morning cartoons based on recent hit movies. They always want to make sequels and such to maximize their brands. All their announcements just remind me of what a huge monopoly of intellectual property they have.

Meanwhile Warner Brothers recently announced that all their movies next year will be released on HBO Max and to the movie theaters at the same time. It's a bold, shocking move, and the theaters are all worried about the closing theatrical window. They have to get new content to survive.