Last Call for Nachos

I found the ending to last night's Better Call Saul very satisfying though it mainly involved the Nacho subplot. Mostly I find Nacho intensely dull and for the most part that held true last night.

The episode began with his continued escape from Mexico which continues to be shot through a yellow filter. I'm not even the only one complaining about productions doing that anymore. Why are they still doing this?

There were about a hundred logistical problems in Nacho's (Michael Mando) hiding in that old oil tanker. It doesn't even seem possible he could've climbed back out of there.

But the Saul (Bob Odenkirk) plot was great as usual. It featured another intriguing scam, this one involving a valet and Huell (Lavell Crawford).

I also liked Kim's (Rhea Seahorn) confrontation with the DA (Julie Pearl) and Kim's insistence on using the name Saul. Damn, I want to know what happened to her.

The Crucial Choice

One of my favourite questions to ask students at the junior high schools I work at here in Japan is, "Who do you like better, Chip or Dale?" The characters are popular here so most of kids know who they are. And they think it's a silly question so they laugh, which I think helps make the grammar memorable. I suppose it's not entirely meaningless, though. It's kind of like asking, "Which is better, the brain or the heart?"

Have you seen the trailer for the upcoming Rescue Rangers movie?

It's hard to imagine anyone thinking this was a good direction to go in. I suppose people at Disney thought this was a different tactic than the unsuccessful DuckTales reboot but it's really the same--lazy, heartless, postmodernist humour. And just like they gave distinct, adult voices to Huey, Dewey, and Louie, they've given distinct, adult voices to Chip and Dale. They want to use these beloved old characters, but somehow they fail to grasp the basic qualities that made them popular. I guess it's because they hire celebrity voice talent and they baulk at the idea of disguising those voices. And somehow they just can't shove their reasoning over the hill blocking them from seeing that they'd save money on casting and make a better product if they just did their voices the old fashioned way.

I was surprised to find Scrooge McDuck isn't well known in Japan. There's limited awareness of Scotland so that might be part of it. Also, he's not so cute and cuddly. It really is a shame the DuckTales reboot was so wrong-headed. David Tennant was such perfect casting. I'd love to see his Scrooge on some genuine adventures instead of just the usual tedious stream of self-aware gags.

A Sudden Glimpse of Normal

Two detectives embark on a stakeout of a young, beautiful lover of a murder suspect. They're surprised to find out how boring she is in the 1958 noir Stakeout (張込み). At turns a fascinating procedural and a melancholy rumination, the film's a really nice detective story from Studio Shochiku.

Two detectives, an elder named Shimooka (Seiji Miyaguchi) and a younger man named Yuki (Minoru Oki), follow the trail of a robbery murder suspect called Ishii (Takahiro Tamura). They travel from Tokyo southwest to Saga in Kyushu, a hot province in a hot summer.

The heat and the realism of the depiction of train travel and town life are two of the things that make the movie reminiscent of Kurosawa's Stray Dog. But I found myself thinking more of Hitchcock's Rear Window.

The detectives find a room in an inn next door to the woman's home, a perfect spot with a bird's eye view of her front yard. As the two detectives watch, the younger man, Yuki, remarks that he's surprised to find the woman is so boring. The older man, Shimooka, merely replies, "Most people are boring."

So they're interpreting what they see and drawing conclusions about how well it reflects life in general, much as one might do after watching a movie. The sense of the film commenting on the audience/film relationship is heightened by the fact that the woman, Sadako, is played by the film's biggest star, Hideko Takamine, but she hardly gets any closeups until the film's climax.

She's married to a businessman--not the murderer--who has three kids from a previous marriage. She gets along with the kids and the husband is stingy but not outright abusive. It's not truly a bad setup but Sadako certainly doesn't seem to be appreciated.

Director Yoshitaro Nomura keeps things interesting as the stakeout drags on, using the second floor inn room with its commanding view to create a number of interesting shots. The inn employees gossip both about the detectives--who've told them unconvincingly that they're travelling salesmen--and Sadako, who comes by at one point to borrow money for groceries because her husband "forgot" to give her some that morning. When action does finally strike, it's sudden and Yuki finds himself madly scrabbling back across country. Unable to send messages except for a single hasty telegram back to his partner, the film nicely stays with his POV as he struggles first with finding Sadako and Ishii and then with deciding how to handle a very sad situation, made sadder by how loveless he knows quite well her home life is.

Stakeout is available on The Criterion Channel.

Twitter Sonnet #1575

The cool of dusk provides the frozen grill.
As often times the dove will buy the snake.
There's something cracked about the human will.
They see the cut between the knife and stake.
Repeated notes were layered over frost.
A sharpened broach was stuck in frizzy hair.
The spoon in boiling soup was slowly lost.
Across the sky there rode an angry mare.
A world of boiling air denies the norm.
Routinely trains would carry blood to work.
Oppressive heat became the average warm.
Behind the bomb the grim detectives lurk.
Entrancing shade awaits in past returned.
A boiling spring in error seasons burned.

Whatever Happened to Hardy Amies?

Dig this briefcase I bought at Book Off a couple months ago. It's the best one I've ever had. It's solid and big enough I could carry an outfit or two if I wanted in addition to a laptop. And it was only around 2000 yen, or twenty dollars. Much less if you consider how far the yen has fallen recently.

Book Off sells used stuff but Japanese people treat their things really well, it seems like new. I was deciding between this one, which is Hardy Amies, and a Samsonite in a similar colour, more of a yellow green than this one's blue green. Ironically, in his book, ABC of Men's Fashion, Amies himself said, "It should be noted that greens with a brown cast--i.e. olive green--are much more becoming than blue greens such as bottle green which is as ugly as its name."

And the book has a blue green cover!

So, yeah, I liked the case so much I bought his book. First published in 1964, it features Amies opinions and advice ordered with alphabetised headings. Not everything holds up--see, for example, his vision of the man of the future:

Under the entry for "Brim" Amies writes, "Today the tendency is to have as narrow a brim as can be achieved without looking ridiculous." I would say "ridiculous" has in fact been achieved in the above picture.

He has plenty of smart things to say, though. He has a lot of praise for Chelsea boots.

When Chelsea boots first appeared in the late 1950s it quickly became certain they were the most appropriate form of footwear to wear with narrow trousers and formal suits. When a new style is tried because the customer thinks it is fashionable or amusing and he then finds in wearing that it is practical, you can be pretty sure that you are going to get an established trend. The style is practical because elastic sided boots are very easy to put on and off as time and trouble for tying laces are avoided.

Which sure is useful in Japan when you have to take off your shoes all the time. That's why I exclusively wear Chelsea boots outdoors now:

Also because I do a lot of walking in the countryside and the rain. The brown ones are waterproof. The black ones, which I bought at H&M a year ago, are already wearing out with big holes in the bottom.

Amies could be witty. Under "American Styling":

The American will not be uncomfortable. This has led him to an insistence on lightweight cloths which in their turn can only be used successfully in suits the lines of which are more loose than restricting. From this they have developed a typical look in urban clothes. Dark in cloth and usually white as to linen; and completed either by a tie too violent in colour or pattern (rarer now) or going to the other extreme of a plain black knitted tie.

Whilst this conservatism is often admirable for the middle aged it can be criticised as being completely unadventurous. The American seems to have a horror of being different; except in play clothes where he is quite happy to be a horror.

Amies, who designed clothes for 2001: A Space Odyssey and Queen Elizabeth II, died in 2003. His company went bankrupt in 2019. I guess it goes to show how important the head is to the body.

Rubble Rumble

I finally saw 2021's West Side Story last night. I think it's better than the 1961 film, primarily because Tony Kushner's screenplay cleared up many of the problems I had with the first adaptation. And, of course, Steven Spielberg's unrivalled instincts for telling a story with a camera are always a boon to a production. But this film has its own problems and, while I'd say it's not bad, it falls well short of the goal it sets for itself.

Poor Steven Spielberg seems like he's consistently failing to get himself back into the zeitgeist. His trouble is that, like a lot of the old guard in Hollywood, he spends too much time listening to younger people in Hollywood, the kinds of people who think specific bubbles of internet discourse represent the public appetites as a whole. If the U.S. public really were on the crusade Twitter makes it seem, West Side Story would be the perfect tale for our times. The story of racial tensions in lower class New York would be crucially relevant. But even the people who passionately push such dialogue aren't, I suspect, much interested in contemplating ideas in that arena as much as they are in using them as cudgels.

The misconception of public appetite diminishes the screenplay a bit, too, leading to awkward moments like dialogue early on between Tony (Anson Elgort) and Doc (Rita Moreno) in which the elderly Puerto Rican woman proclaims to him and the audience that he doesn't hate Puerto Ricans. We shouldn't need her to tell us that but those obsessed with the ever elusive phantom of internalised -isms would need that box checked.

Moreno gives a fine performance but changing Doc from an elderly Jewish man to an elderly Puerto Rican woman creates too many problems. It doesn't make sense that the Jets would use her shop as a base and it's part of the reason the attempted rape scene doesn't work.

Why would a frail old Puerto Rican woman be able to stop a gang of white guys from raping a Puerto Rican girl? The resolution of the scene in the 1961 film strained credibility, too, but the Jewish man would be more likely to be taken as a respected authority by the Jets, as much as they can respect authority. He also provided interesting perspective by comparing the Jets' problems with the ones he faced in Nazi Germany.

The whole tone of the attempted gang rape scene doesn't work, though, because I think Spielberg just didn't have the stomach for it. Anita (Ariana DeBose) too quickly and easily gets to a safe position of dignity and defiance than such a situation would allow her.

One of the improvements in the 2021 film is that the Jets have much clearer motivation. Spielberg establishes it right a way with a sweeping crane shot starting from rubble, passing over a demolition sign, and then establishing a whole neighbourhood being torn down. Anyone who thinks about the rampant gentrification in the U.S. to-day would see the relevance right away. The Jets, who shortly thereafter make their first appearance, are no longer in the bright clean colours of the 1961 film, but are dressed in dingy, greasy hand-me-downs.

You can see why they feel cut off from this world and desperate to form and defend their own community.

The romance between Tony and Maria (Rachel Zegler) works much better. Kushner irons out the nonsense in their dialogue about Maria wanting Tony to stop the rumble. She no longer demands it of him and sees his point when he says it's probably impossible. When suddenly he insists he's going to do it, they've believably worked themselves into an optimistic delusion.

I'm not a fan of Anson Elgort but Spielberg works a lot of magic with him. Spielberg clearly seems more interested in him than in Zegler. With pans and cutting, Spielberg adds to Elgort's muscularity to flattering effect when he climbs the fire escape or just leans provocatively against a wall. Spielberg seems similarly taken with Lieutenant Schrank (Corey Stoll) who might be my favourite character in the film.

Rachel Zegler never comes out of the shadow of Natalie Wood and I don't even think Natalie Wood was that great in the 1961 film. Zegler's Maria is still like a vague idea of a pretty girl. Again, the insightful poetry Shakespeare gave to the dialogue of Romeo and Juliet is sorely missed.

Ariana DeBose is sexy as Anita and her grief when she learns about Bernardo (David Alvarez) is gripping. She's not so effective in her other big scene, the attempted rape, but I actually blame Spielberg more for that.

The songs are still good. The dance choreography isn't bad.

West Side Story is available on Disney+.

The Opportunities of a Plastic Surgeon

A host of beautiful women and Cary Grant starred in 1934's Kiss and Make-Up. Grant gives a better performance than this otherwise fairly disposable little romp deserves. Though, since it is pre-Code, it's a novelty now just for how much sex it has.

Grant plays a cosmetic surgeon named Maurice Lamar. It's heavily implied that he sleeps with all the women who come to him, and that all the women adore him.

Trouble arises when an aggrieved gentleman (Edward Everett Horton) confronts him about his attentions to his wife, Eve (Genevieve Tobin). Meanwhile, romantic tension starts to blossom between Lamar and his down to earth secretary, Annie (Helen Mack).

The jokes are mostly pretty dopey but the women are all beautiful. Grant actually sings in a couple scenes and you can see why he never starred in any major musicals. There's a gag at the expense of Edward Everett Horton at the end of the film I thought was genuinely funny.

Kiss and Make-Up is available on The Criterion Channel.

Moon Mind

Last night's new Moon Knight was my favourite episode so far. The Indiana Jones vibe swerved into a Hellboy vibe for an episode that's finally delivering on the promise for the MCU to lean more into horror.

I loved that reanimated mummy Layla fought. He was right out of a Hellboy comic or movie. The whole sequence in the tomb really captured the adventure serial tone it was going for. All it lacks is a character to anchor it as strongly as Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, or Hellboy. Neither Marc/Steven nor Layla has a good enough costume in this episode to rival the iconic looks of those characters. Layla's character has been too hazily designed, kind of a classic example of a female lead being written entirely based on her reactions to the male characters--her career is motivated by her father, her revenge is motivated by her father, her affections are torn between Marc and Steven. So far we haven't gotten a good impression of Layla's own core personality.

Marc/Steven is much better and it's becoming more and more entertaining to see their exasperation with each other. And even more rewarding when they actually start to show each other respect and even affection, as when they run into each other in the mental institution.

I don't know if people have competing theories on what's going on but I'm pretty firmly in the belief that this is all occurring in Marc/Steven's head, or in some special psychic space built from his mind that other entities can enter. Which makes it a pretty well-worn plot type. I found myself thinking of the sixth season Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Normal Again". Which is fine but the tomb stuff was so much better. Hopefully they'll move on quickly, maybe this'll just turn into a gateway into the realm of the Egyptian gods so Marc and Steven can rescue Konshu.

Moon Knight is available on Disney+.

Twitter Sonnet #1574

Distracted muppets ride the acting suits.
A face and face compete for feet and fists.
The clunky box was stood on ugly boots.
A six again's revealed in yellow mist.
Transported blinks were notches short of eyes.
If letter one or two would care to snap.
The rented sheets became a special prize.
And here we think it's surely time to nap.
With desert ghosts the tourist took the sea.
Sufficient grains could build a healthy beach.
You'll find the captain makes the fo'c'sle tea.
A solid park returned the empty peach.
The ruddy doctor fought a walking tan.
Beneath the crescent sleeps a desert man.

Saul is Called Again

The first two episodes of the new season of Better Call Saul appeared on Netflix last night. These are the first new episodes in two years and they're pretty good. It really feels like the show picks up where it left off right down to having the same strengths and weaknesses.

The subplots involving Gus and Nacho and Lalo are still not remotely interesting while Jimmy's decent into Saul-hood is captivating. But I think the question on everyone's mind is, "What happens to Kim?"

I like how she's become a co-conspirator in the creation of Saul. The scene in the country club was terrific fun and I was happy to see the show has gone back to the original concept of Jimmy playing he Jewish sounding name, "Saul Goodman", as an angle.

The scene also featured a cameo from James Urbaniak. whom you may know as Doctor Venture from The Venture Brothers. He gives a pretty funny and subtle performance here as Saul's tour guide at the club. You can see the gears working in his head as he tries to keep up with Saul's grift.

This season's also supposed to see the return of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman. I hope their presence is worked in organically.

The first episode of this season notably didn't begin with a "flash forward" of Saul's life post-Breaking Bad as the show has routinely done in previous seasons. I hope this means there'll be a time shift to the present this season. Bob Odenkirk doesn't resemble his younger self much at all anymore so it's gotten a bit awkward watching him play younger. It's too bad de-aging technology hasn't gotten flawless and cheap. Anyway, he's still giving a good performance and if 50 year old men can play Romeo surely Odenkirk can play Saul.

Better Call Saul is available on Netflix.

A Half-Hearted Plunder

So the new Doctor Who special was really bad. I won't confidently predict this one'll be universally hated, as I did for the last one, though I'd once again be surprised to learn it isn't. I mean, it's remarkable how an episode's every step can be a misstep. There was something wrong with almost every line and every shot.

Never has Jodie Whittaker seemed less like the Doctor. Too many people said, "That's impossible!" in this episode but it's particularly bad for the Doctor to say it when seeing a flying sailing ship. Even if this weren't the same character who'd starred in Enlightenment, the Fifth Doctor story about space-faring ships made to look like 18h century sea vessels, surely the Doctor's seen plenty enough strange things by now to know better than to immediately proclaim something impossible.

She also remarks on the strangeness of Sea Devils having ships, wondering why sea creatures would need ships. I don't know, Doctor, why would land creatures like humans need cars? Use your head. She wonders what Sea Devils are doing in 19th century China. Why wouldn't they be there? The Sea Devils are a variant of the Silurians, an intelligent species who dwelt on Earth long before humans. What difference would human territorial borders mean to them?

The Doctor is pleased to join forces with Cheng I Sao (Crystal Yu), based on the real life pirate queen. I wonder if the Doctor would so casually ally with a pirate with such a murderous and tyrannical record if it had been Captain Kidd or Henry Morgan. Madame Ching may from here commence a reign of terror on the coastal villages of China but at least they stopped those dratted Sea Devils from . . . What the hell were they trying to do?

There's a basic absurdity to Ching being introduced as a pirate queen immediately from the fact that she's all alone. She even has a massive junk that looks a lot more like an English man'o'war that she somehow crews entirely on her lonesome. The explanation? Her crew are being held hostage along with her two little boys. The boys make sense but her whole crew? Is she really trying to get a ransom for the random tars who'd signed articles on the promise of plunder? Who would think those men would be any kind of worthwhile hostage? What kind of pirate is she? What kind of queen, for that matter? The real life Cheng I Sao commanded a fleet.

Of course, a lot of decisions were clearly made due to Covid restrictions. But why even attempt a story like this? Why not have a bottle episode, or even one like the New Years special which, despite its faults, at least only needed a few characters.

The stuff about romance between the Doctor and Yaz (Mandip Gill) was a little better because at least it slowed the pace down. I've complained about the excessive closeups in the 13th's era plenty of times but here they were particularly bad in the jumbled, incoherent action sequences. However, again, the Doctor is saying all the wrong things. She calls Yaz "one of the greatest people I ever met." We know that's not true. Surely the Doctor should be old enough by now not to be given to simp hyperbole. She mentions her wife and then says she shouldn't have. Why not? And which wife is she talking about? Why does it sound like she'd only had one?

The two still don't have any chemistry. At least they seemed to be on the same soundstage, though.

Doctor Who is available on the BBC iPlayer.

Easter Sugar

Christmas is so popular in Japan so it's kind of surprising that people seem barely aware of Easter. I was in the mood to celebrate it this year so I hosted an Easter themed chess tournament and Easter Egg hunt in Second Life with my European friends.

I did find some Easter candy, though, at the department store, just one solitary bag of little chocolate eggs. It's probably just as well, I seem to have completely lost my sweet tooth. I think I may have overloaded myself my first year in Japan. Being an American whose sweets were so often made with high fructose corn syrup, it was kind of amazing to be in a country with so much real sugar. I was eating a lot of doughnuts for a while, now they just make me feel sick. Even if I try to eat just one old fashioned doughnut.

I do still seem to enjoy ice cream. A new shop opened up recently called Blue Seal, apparently a famous chain from Okinawa. I finally had a chance to stop in a couple weeks ago and I immediately ran into two of my former students there eating crepes. They watched me eat two scoops of ice cream--strawberry cheesecake and cocoanut. "Oishii (delicious)?" one of them asked. "Oh, yes," I said. It was some of the best ice cream I'd ever had.

Twitter Sonnet #1573

The living cable clasped the floating room.
And so the house began to build but slow.
The strange events assort the beams to boom.
A wooden voice affixed a word too low.
The eggs were always hid in easy view.
Deceptive bulbs illume the lamps about.
The chocolate dots arrive in bitter queue.
The hands of yellow peeps have traced the route.
Potato lunches stole the breakfast week.
A giant shape condemned the darkened street.
There's many parts of cars exceeding weak.
A helpless song observed a toneless beat.
A carton held a round and limbless team.
The empty egg could yet contain a dream.

Dekpa and Deborah Attract Admirers

Happy Easter, everyone. Your present is a new chapter of my webcomic, Dekpa and Deborah. I guess you could say the comic, like Christ, has risen from the dead this day. Enjoy.

Happy Birthday to the 17th century playwright John Ford ("'Tis Pity She's a Whore"), William Holden, Olivia Hussey, Roddy Piper, and Sean Bean.

And to-morrow, April 18, is the birthday of Miklos Rozsa, who composed this appropriate song:

It Came from a Location

A woman goes somewhere and then there are zombies, sort of. That's about as solid as the premise is for 1973's Messiah of Evil. Written and directed by husband and wife team Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, best known for their collaborations with George Lucas (they were screenwriters for American Graffiti, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Howard the Duck), Messiah of Evil has been called surreal, which in this case I think is a charitable way of saying it doesn't make any sense. But it has a lot of little moments that are effective if one forgets about the context, or lack thereof.

The film begins with an interesting shot of Arletty (Marianna Hill) walking down a corridor in a madhouse. In voiceover, she promises to tell us about the strange events that no-one believes her about. The ensuing flashback, essentially the whole film, leaves her point of view frequently, ruining the whole "survivor's account" quality. One of my favourite moments is when Arletty pulls into a gas station and sees the attendant firing a gun into pitch darkness. Then he walks back to the station and the two have a completely normal, casual conversation about filling her gas tank.

Arletty's going to a small town to visit her father (Royal Dano) but at his house instead finds just a few lazy young bohemians. She finds them lounging on a bed while none other than Elisha Cook Jr. is monologuing for them next to a TV.

He's telling them about the horrors of the zombie infestation but the whole scene is presented like they've hired the famous character actor to give a private performance.

The zombies start picking off the group one by one in ways that only make sense if the zombies are aware of being in a horror movie and know that their job is to be creepy. One of the bohemians (Joy Bang) goes to see a movie and all the zombies quietly file in and fill up the seats behind her.

It's creepy but what the motive is is certainly not clear.

We get a vague back story about how a strange man appeared a hundred years ago and infected the town in some way. The stranger comes from the sea in one scene, one of several things that indicate an H.P. Lovecraft influence.

The disconnect between the movie and internal logic could be taken as a postmodern commentary on horror movies, I guess. But like a lot of postmodernism, it seems suspiciously like the writers were just too lazy. The film does have a lot of interesting shots, though.

Messiah of Evil is available on Shudder.

The Sign of the Red Hair

I've had another English text book make reference to Sherlock Holmes at a junior high school here in Japan. Some kids do seem to be aware of him, mostly through the popular anime and manga Detective Conan. The character was named after Arthur Conan Doyle. This time, the text book specifically references "The Red-headed League". So I read it again to make it into a presentation for the class.

I love the slightly implausible strangeness of it. I don't think it's a story that could be translated to a modern setting. I think now someone setting up a bogus fund for red-headed men would draw too much attention, especially with a line of red-headed men lined down the block. But on the streets of Victorian London, I can picture it working.

It's fascinating seeing the description of the neighbourhood around Jabez Wilson's pawnshop. A vegetarian restaurant is mentioned. I suspect it would've been like the vegetarian menu options here in Japan which usually have chicken broth or bonito flakes.

I started reading the next story, "A Case of Identity", in my copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It starts with one of my favourite quotes from Holmes. It's part of a longer speech about how "fact is stranger than fiction", a sentiment I don't really agree with. But I love this comment from Holmes;

"If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable."

Twitter Sonnet #1572

Enshrined in carrot tubes, the golfers sleep.
With boredom, Holmes could seal a letter tight.
The camping kids were counting ghostly sheep.
Then something strange obscured the forest night.
The room could shake but not dislodge the song.
Emboldened pants would cut the flow of blood.
A sandy path would lead the river wrong.
But hardened salt could stand in rainy mud.
A Gremlin sat alone among the cars.
Electric sparks began the model storm.
A stamp sufficed to sign for absent Mars.
The nurse forgot to fax the patient's form.
A common fire burnt a shadow pan.
The field of metal wheat was made by man.

Moon Jones

Last night's Moon Knight had a good, old fashioned adventure serial vibe. Writers Beau DeMayo, Peter Cameron, and Sabir Pirzada took the show into a slightly different tone but director Mohamed Diab returned to give us quality action sequences again as he did in the first episode. Though again with strangely unfinished looking effects.

I've seen other critics compare this episode to Indiana Jones and I can certainly see it. Layla (May Calamawy) is kind of a more battle-ready version of Marian Ravenwood. Also like Raiders of the Lost Ark, we're jumping into the story between her and the male lead in the middle, rather than starting with their first meeting. Considering how much Raya and the Last Dragon seemed influenced by Indiana Jones, I wonder if Disney is doing this to subliminally seed promotion for Indiana Jones 5

The Marc/Steven (Oscar Isaac) relationship feels more straightforward, more conducive to a pulp story. In the previous episode, Steven mysteriously had aspects of Layla's personality, as though he may have been constructed from Marc's impressions of her. Now he simply seems to be an entirely different person with a complete and plot-useful expertise in ancient Egypt rather than an amateur fondness. The previous episode seemed to imply Layla had equivocal expertise to Steven but that no longer seems to be the case.

I really like the scene where Khonshu (F. Murray Abraham/Karim El Hakim) changes the night's sky though it seems like they could've found a way to calculate the stars' positions. Or maybe Khonshu could've simply conjured a picture of the night sky. But it was a cool effect.

Moon Knight is available on Disney+.

Gilbert Gottfried

Gilbert Gottfried passed away at the age of 67 yesterday, which seems pretty young, especially for a guy who's seemed like he's 90 for the past forty years. He's probably most famous for voicing Iago the parrot in Disney's Aladdin, but those of us who know his comedy, either through his stand-up or appearances on radio shows, it was always a remarkable irony that he ever got within a hundred miles of a Disney production. He had a genius for filth.

In our time of dispiriting political correctness, it is kind of heartening that Gilbert was grinning and harshly cackling right to the end. Something about the relentless monotone of revelling incredulity made his jokes work. The timing was great, too. His version of "The Aristocrats" works mainly for the points where he diverges from the filth for a moment. Because, of course, those are the surprising moments.

Occasionally he could even conjure a bit of atmosphere which I connect to his love of Universal monsters. Surely our world has a great, gaping void for his abscess, I mean absence.

Bases Late

This was the sunset yesterday as I left the junior high school. I'd stayed late to watch the baseball team practice. They stayed practicing long after I left. They really are like monks. When I walked onto the field, every single one of the fifty or so players stopped, took off his or her hat, and bowed. They did that every time a teacher walked onto the field.

I say "his or her" because there are three girls on the team. At other schools, usually there are one or two girls. They wear the same full uniform as the boys every time they practice. The only difference I see is that the girls don't shave their heads.

Their enthusiasm for the sport is amazing. But plenty of them like to joke and horse around. Two of the strongest hitters set up near my seat and showed off their skills. One of them tossed balls to the other who slammed each one into the net or occasionally well over the top of the high fence into the distant rice field. The strength in their hits was palpable. One of them pointed at the other, grinning, and said, "Ohtani-san."

Twitter Sonnet1571

A basic smile cinched the face to full.
And here expression meets a human hue.
With feathers fluffed a love's horizons pool.
A fervent letter starts and ends with Q.
A fire dream was dancing by her head.
A snarling glass was broken years before.
Departed kings remain as restless dead.
The sand was grey along the violent shore.
Another shade of red entangled stairs.
To rap the door a bell constructs a ring.
The quiet pond contained reflected bears.
From early dawn the birds refused to sing.
The air was blurred for lingered petal pink.
Kinetic games displayed the motion link.

Ursa Minor

Long ago, a fraught family relationship is healed after one party is turned into a bear. No, it's not Brother Bear, it's 2012's Brave. After trailers promised a mediaeval action adventure with a flaming redhead princess, I have to think a lot of people were disappointed by a film that was more of a goofy comedy about a mother and daughter relationship. Still, despite kind of a lame plot, it's not a bad film and the relationship between the princess and her mother is interesting.

In mediaeval Scotland, Princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald) is a headstrong lass who'd rather be riding her horse and shooting trees than entertaining suitors. It's too bad this movie wasn't made in an era when they could've shown Merida actually hunting. It would've made sense with all the meat her family is shown eating. As it is, we only get once instance where she shoots a fish when she and her mother (Emma Thompson) are hiding in the woods.

I've heard Merida's kind of an unpopular character partly because she turned her mother into a bear. It's not like she did it on purpose, though. What I don't understand is why Merida has to flee from her family or why she has to sneak into the castle later.

The first part of the film is the best which is focused more on the very sweet chemistry Merida has with her big boisterous father (Billy Connolly).

I really do wish this had been a film about Merida going into the woods and facing some terror no-one else could. That hair of hers really is eye catching and it's fun watching her do trick shots with her bow and arrows. But some of the early stuff about how she and her mother misunderstand each other is nice. Though her mother's shift towards being more understanding of her daughter halfway through the film comes kind of abruptly and without adequate buildup.

Brave is available on Disney+.