Monologies!

In a bold move sure to reinvent serious film making as we know it, Marvel Studios will be producing movies that don't link together in to a massive twenty-two part interconnected mega-epic but instead will feature self-contained stories. Monologies if you will (you shouldn't). Obviously they'll still be part of the MCU, they're not monsters, but the movies won't rely on you having seen the entire series. Which...good for them? Maybe?

"Well, we looked at what worked, and what made us billions
of dollars and decided to do something else."

-Marvel, evidently

I mean, if Citizen Kane is so great, how
come there's no Kane-verse, hmmm?

This startling reveal came in an Cinemablend interview with Trinh Tran, one of the producers on Endgame and one of the architects of the Marvel brand® shared cinematic universe. She told Cinemablend that the last ten years was building to the Infinity War/Endgame climax and that while that may happen again someday, it could be another ten years of, get this: stand-alone movies. Like, what's even the point of going to a movie if half of it isn't about setting things up for later movies?

"We're thrilled to leverage our IP's to create
the content consumers expect from our brand!"

"...with obviously our Disney+ side and the shows and how are characters are venturing into that world and how that's gonna lead to the future and more franchises and more stories and more properties and their connective tissue to the rest of the MCU it would be amazing to do something like this ten years later."

-Trinh Tran, 

corporate-ing

So again, I'm not sure if I agree with Martin Scorsese's argument that Marvel movies aren't real cinema. And yes, it totally makes him sound like an out-of-touch curmudgeon telling kids to get off his lawn. But when filmmakers openly refer to their movies in terms of franchises and properties and set an intention of developing a multi-media consistent narrative universe across multiple characters and settings instead of, you know, making a movie that's about say people, I can kind of see what he's getting at.

"And another thing: have you noticed how kids these days are wearing
their dungarees too low? So disrespectful. Oh! And all the swearing!"

-Martin Scorsese, noted old

Who among us is equipped for such genius?

I'm just...like are they just writing for Saturday Night Live now? I mean, our president's genius? For serious? This from Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham who was responding to former White House Press Secretary John Kelly who, in an interview at a political conference on Saturday said that he warned the President that he may find himself on the receiving end of an impeachment which...no shit, right?

Pictured: a rare sighting of the current White House Press Secretary. Reporters
fired several rounds of questions at her but she quickly bolted for the underbrush.

Above: basically John Kelly.

Our president's genius...Anyway, according to then outgoing Chief of Staff Kelly:

"I said, whatever you do - and we were still in the process of trying to find someone to take my place - I said whatever you do, don't hire a 'yes man,' someone who won't tell you the truth -  don't do that. Because if you do, I believe you will be impeached..."

-Former Chief of Staff and 

goddamned psychic, John Kelly

Ok, so Kelly predicted impeachment the same way a calendar predicts Tuesday. Super. Like, perhaps the President's most prominent flaw-apart from you know, everything else-is his constant and insatiable hunger for the praise and adulation of others. Usually racists. 

As evidenced by the fact that he's thus far evenly divided his
Presidency between golfing and holding rallies for himself,
stopping only to fire off angry Tweets about how great he is.

Back in the action? Wait, don't most
of his advisors end up in prison?

So the suggestion that the President would hire a sycophant tracks, but the President's response was, of course, characteristically hostile: 

"John Kelly never said that, he never said anything like that. If he would have said that I would have thrown him out of the office. He just wants to come back into the action like everybody else does."

-Trump, staying in character at least

Above: Grisham, seen here basking
in the genius of her great President.

What was even more amazing was the Press Secretary's response which I can only assume was cribbed from the official North Korean Guide to Cult of Personalities. I mean, lookit:

"I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President."

-Press Secretary Stephanie Gris-

huh? Why are you laughing?

Oh, and if you've never heard of Stephanie Grisham until just now, don't worry, you're not alone. Despite this being the most transparent White House ever (no really, she said that), she's given I think like one press conference but doesn't do them anymore because the press, for some reason, only reports negative stories about the President.

Hey wait, you don't suppose it's because Trump is an incompetent, narcissistic goon
whose Presidency has marked a new low in American politics do you? Or maybe
the press is just out to get him. Because he's such a genius. And they're jealous. 

What is it with Republicans and murder?

To be clear, no, of course he wouldn't be immune to prosecution if he shot somebody on Fifth Avenue. Also, what's with Republicans and shooting people? It's like they just love murder. Or something. Wait, do they love murder? Because that would explain a lot.

"Of course we do. We're sociopaths.
Are you just getting that now?"

-Mitch McConnell

(actual quote)

Pictured: George III, our last king who,
incidentally was not allowed free murders.

Anyway, I mention this because the President's personal lawyer, William S. Consovoy, argued today in New York that as the sitting President, Trump basically has the starman power-up from Super Mario Bros. and can do anything, literally anything up to and including murder someone in public. Which, I mean, didn't we fight an entire war to get rid of a constitutional monarchy? We did. And the plan was never to replace it with an absolute one with blanket immunity. And this in a hearing over a subpoena over Trump's financial records issued by New York Prosecutors looking into his hush money payments.

But for real, can we get a psych eval?

And look, I'm not a constitutional scholar or anything, but no. No. The line must be drawn here. The reason there's any question as to the indict-ability of a sitting president is that up to now, presidents either haven't been so blatantly criminal that we needed to talk about it, or if they were they were way better at hiding their crimes. If Trump just lost it one day...ok, if he further lost it, and started waving a gun around I'm pretty sure he'd be wrestled to the ground by his own security detail and hauled away for a psych evaluation.

Because cookies are for presidents
who don't violate the emoluments clause.

And ok, obviously Donald Trump isn't going to just up murder someone on the street-at least I don't think he's going to who can say? But whatever, his lawyer's strategy here is seems to be based around hey, at least he didn't kill someone. Which, I mean, is anyone else uncomfortable with that being the bar? Are we...we we supposed to be grateful that he didn't kill someone and just look the other way when it comes to the hush money and by extension all the other crimes he's committed? Sorry, allegedly. Does he want a cookie?

So up at the top there I may have claimed that the Mitch McConnell quote about how he and all Republicans are sociopaths is something he actually said. I'm going to stand by that quote. Not because it's real, because objective truth is dead as evidenced by the fact that we're still talking about whether or not Donald Trump has free rein to murder people.

Hey, remember that time Bill Clinton lied about an affair and
the Republicans lost their ever-loving shit? Well, they don't.

Junior Birdman

Yes, of course he flipped off the astronauts. Of course he did. Do you even have to-huh? What am I talking about? Why this. It's around the 2:15 mark.

The President of the United States everybody...

Pretty sure this is what the
President was picturing when
someone said female astronaut.

Yeah, it's ok. I know you didn't click on it. It's a thing we do. I'll describe, but really, do watch it. Words simply will not do it justice but here, let me set the scene: the President was talking to astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir via satellite when he referred to this as the first time female astronauts have worked outside of the space station. Meir politely pointed out that she and Koch don't deserve credit for that particular milestone since women have worked on the exterior of the station before. This was the first time there's been an all female space walk (which is an important step in itself) and Meir didn't want to take credit for something that she didn't do-which I suppose is an alien concept for the President. But whatever, simple mistake, right? Like, I think Trump is a narcissistic, lying goon with a thin skin and a the intellect of a cactus, but this was an honest mistake.

Pictured: what it looks like when people
earn their positions through merit.

Anyone could have made this sort of error. And what a great opportunity to learn something new. Any normal, well-adjusted person might have responded with something like "Really? I didn't know that. How fascinating!" But no, the former host of The Apprentice made like a petulant pre-teen and pretended to smooth his butterscotch-colored coiffure with his stubby middle digit. Like I said, of course he did. I'm sure his fans will leap to his defense and insist that we're making something out of nothing but they would be wrong.

Obviously this pales in comparison to his many crimes he's so indignant about being investigated for, but it does speak to why most of us dislike him so much. This wasn't a mistake or an unfortunate, absent-minded gesture caught on camera but the deliberate, childish act of a small man who can't stand it when he's not the center of attention.

This. This is why no one likes you Mr. President.
Well, this and all the other shit you do and stand for.

Dentists, amiright?

So America's public school teachers are overworked, underpaid and have to buy supplies out of their own pocket but sure, this dentist had a million dollars to drop on a bunch of old games. I'm sure that was money well spent.

America: our priorities aren't great.

The real question here
is what's up with dentists? 

What am I talking about? Well, clearly you didn't click on my link. Even after I went through all the trouble of putting it there. Sigh. Guess I'll just explain. Again. Believe it or not, I'm not just complaining about how teachers make shit and dentists are rolling in cash and selling us unnecessary teeth whitenings and hawking sonic toothbrushes while you're still bibbed and helpless in their chairs-fine, I'm also complaining about that. Remember the last rich dentist we talked about? The one that wanted to clone John Lennon?

Anyway, what I want to talk about is the part where a guy called Eric Naierman bought a million dollars worth of video games. A million. Dollars. Of money. Yup, Naierman, a dentist from Florida-ugh, Florida-decided he was bored with collecting baseball cards.

One presumes this is because cards are lame and baseball is dumb.

Evaluates, grades them and then
seals them up for all eternity.

His solution? Collect video games instead. Ok. I mean, video games are objectively better than baseball cards, but how can one possibly spend a million dollars on them? Easily, it turns out. Naierman along with some collector friends who call themselves-I shit you not: The Video Game Club, bought a collection of forty factory-sealed, first run copies of classic NES games including Golf, Balloon Fight and Mario Bros. All of them locked inside hard plastic, protective cases and rated by Wata Games; a company that evaluates and grades games for the collectors' market.

Above: an unfortunate collector after
choosing a copy of Urban Champion.

And cool. I mean, it's super that Naierman has got a hobby, but I'm always a little troubled by the practice of collecting things. According to Denix Kahn, the CEO of Wata Games, these games "...are some of the holy grails and cream of the crop in terms of having this historic value..." First of all, weird allusion, because the thing about the holy grail is that there's only supposed to be the one. Something is the holy grail of a particular category or it's not. You can't have holy grails of video games. Secondly, it's not like they're going to a museum (yes, there's a video game museum).

Wait-someone told him he could get
these games digitally, right? For
way less than a million dollars?

They're going into Nairman and pals' houses or whatever to slowly deteriorate inside their plastic cases. And I know they're not rare games in terms of content. Like, they're mostly all available as digital downloads or on eBay for a few bucks. It's the physical games and boxes in perfect condition that make them valuable. And I'm not sure what historical value they have beyond "hey isn't that neat," but since no one other than whomever Naierman eventually sells them to someday is ever going to see them, what's the point? Collector's items just become currency for rich people.

Pictured: Portrait of Adele Bloch-
Bauer II. Currently on display in
some dude's mansion bathroom.

It's sort of like Oprah. Well, it's sort of like Gustav Klimt, but we'll get to Oprah. During World War II, the Nazis stole, among other things (like Poland), art. Nazis loved art. Their haul included a Klimt picture called Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II. After the war, the Allies gave it to a museum and the niece of the woman in the painting spent years trying to get it returned. She eventually did, but ultimately sold it. Huh? I don't know, she was like ninety and survived the Nazis. She can do whatever she wants, ok? Next Oprah bought it and put it on display in a museum in New York for a few years. But then she sold it on to some guy in China. So now this rando rich guy is going to have this famous and important work of art hanging in his private gallery or whatever all because Oprah wanted to make a buck. Ok, in fairness to Oprah, she bought it for eighty million and sold it for one hundred and fifty, so like seventy million bucks. But remember that she's already super rich and has her own magazine, so you'd think she'd be cool and let the museum keep it, but what do I know? I'm not a rich person. I don't know how they think.

Look, I'm not telling Oprah or Naierman or whomever what to do with their money and I'm not suggesting that Duck Hunt has the same historical value as a Klimt painting. I guess it just bums me out that there's this weird drive out their to buy up things with cultural value and squirrel them away in our houses where no one else can see them.

Naierman, seen here brandishing some of the games.
If you're a patient of his, be sure to mention this next time
he tries to talk you into a gum graft or something. 

Today in dubious outrage:

"Mossack Fonseca powers activate!"
"Form of...a tax shelter!"
"Shape of...jurisdictional roadblocks!"

Jurgan Mossack and Ramon Fonseca are outraged I tell you. Outraged. So who are they and why are they outraged? Good questions. Who they are are lawyers. But with their powers combined they are: Mossack Fonseca, a law firm that manages wealth and incorporates companies in the British Virgin Islands for rich people from all over the world who are simply above paying taxes. And they're outraged because there's a movie about their many crimes and they're upset that it might make them look bad. So upset that they're suing Netflix.

"Ugh..."

-Everyone who saw Bright

And look, they're plenty of reasons to be upset with Netflix. Did you see Bright? No? Me neither, but you probably could sue them over it. But in the streaming service's defense, Mossack and Fonseca did, for decades operate an offshore tax shelter for the world's millionaires and billionaires. But then the whole thing blew up back in 2016 in the Panama Papers scandal when a German newspaper got a hold of eleven million documents from the firm outing hundreds of famous people and political leaders as big fat tax dodgers.

Huh? No, remarkably enough Trump isn't implicated in this particular scandal. Although we did learn today about a brand new financial scam wherein he's been lying to the State of New York about income from his rental properties. So what, I guess we'll just add that to the list of crimes then...

"Joe Biden's son something something..."

-Noted conman and former

reality show host, The President

Pictured: simultaneously the most
dangerous and adorable game.

Anyway, back to the lawsuit. Mossack and Fonseca accuse Netflix of defamation which presupposes they had some fame to begin with, right? Like, do they feel that this movie is tarnishing their good name? They run a haven for shady business run by the absurdly wealthy, oligarchs and I'm guessing straight up criminals. Unless this movie has them hunting puppies for sport how is it defamation? Sure, the immoral wealthy people who use their services share some blame here, but-huh? Yeah, I guess I wouldn't put puppy-hunting past them.

Now they're also accusing the filmmakers of making it impossible for them to get a fair trail, arguing that the movie will prejudice any potential jurors. And I can almost see their point. They are entitled to a fair trail. It's the law. Of course it's also the law that people have pay taxes, so it's interesting that they're suddenly huge fans of the law.

These are guys who make their money helping other rich people screw their home
 countries out of tax revenue. Netflix cast Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas.
Kinda seems like we should be worried about Oldman and Banderas' reputations.

Today in pretend lawsuits:

Whoa! Did you see that? How the President totally turned the tables on Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff? Yeah, he's going to sue them for...uh...something? Being mean to him? Doesn't matter because  "...what they're doing is a terrible thing for our country." Oh, and if it doesn't work, impeach them. Which, cool, you can't actually impeach a member of congress but cool.

Let's see: We the blah blah blah, perfect union blah...nope, can't
impeach a member of congress. Huh, but you can totally impeach
a President for violating the emoluments clause. Interesting...

Oh, so it's like that time The Riddler
sued Batman for foiling his schemes
and sending him to prison. 

Anyway, he's threatening to sue Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi. That's what he told everyone at the ironically named Values Voters Summit to the raucous applause of people with no deep understanding of how the law works. I mean, you're probably wondering exactly what he'd be suing them for and that's a valid question because you're a reasonable, attractive person with a healthy interest in the American political system. And the answer is because they're looking into the many crimes he's committed.

We'll understand he's wasting the court's
time in an effort to divert attention away
from the investigation into his crimes.

Which isn't at all how the law works but that's the beauty of it because, according to Trump:

"I actually told my lawyer, I said sue him anyway. He's (Schiff) got immunity, but they can't mean immunity for that. I said even if we lose, the American public will understand."

-Donald Trump, on 

how we'll understand

So to sum up, Trump's plan here is to sue members of congress over their investigations into his abuse of power, which is literally their job, and not something he can sue over and also, isn't he the one violating all kinds of laws and statutes? But failing that, he'd like to impeach sitting members of congress instead which isn't a thing he can do anyway. But it's ok because we'll understand. 

"I don't know what to tell you, most of us voted for Hillary Clinton."

-Nancy Pelosi, future 

defendant in a pretend lawsuit 

brought by a flailing lunatic

Under cover of darkness

Don't worry everybody, we're fine here in northern California. As you may have heard, the unchallenged monopoly that is Pacific Gas and Electric has shut off power to hundreds of thousands of us in an effort to avoid devastating wildfires. Which they kind of caused. Through gross negligence. So what, do they want a cookie?

Because they're not getting one.

"Zzzzzt."

-Power lines

2018's Camp Fire was caused by a power line breaking and starting a blaze that killed 85 people and destroyed over eighteen thousand buildings. It was terrible, but I think many of us lost sight of the real victims here: PG&E. The company as a result of the lawsuits filed in the fire's wake were forced to declare bankruptcy just to stay in business. Which they're bad at. But I mean, it's not like they started the fire, they just let their equipment deteriorate to such a degree it was the direct cause of the fire.

They're only human right? What were they supposed to do? Invest their earnings back into maintaining equipment and infrastructure and trimming back trees that could snap power lines? And not pay its shareholders $4.5 billion in dividends?

"Wildfires? Sound like a poor problem."

-Typical PG&E shareholder

Did they even take into consideration what
this could do to the echo containment grid?
I mean, this is how you get ghosts.

Ok, so the reasoning behind the power outages is that in the event of high winds, the utility will simply cut the power and avoid another flame-ravaged hellscape like the last eighteen times this has happened. Cool. But less cool is the fact that this isn't a light switch we're talking about. According to PG&E, bringing the power back online could take as many as five days. Hospitals have generators, but most of us don't which can be a problem for older people or people with disabilities who may rely on power for home medical equipment.

Also, not to get all capitalist on us here, but a lot of people have, you know, jobs. And many businesses won't open if there's no power meaning plenty of employees will just lose days of work and consequently, pay.

Hey underpaid retail workers, you ok to
take another one for the team? Super.

Ironically, a monster would be a valid reason
to take the drastic step of shutting off the power.

But surely it's better to suffer some economic consequences if it means saving lives, right? Of course it is. I'm not a monster. But the trigger for making the call to shut off the power was supposed to be high winds and low humidity, specifically forty miles per hour winds and less than twenty percent humidity. These, coupled with poorly maintained infrastructure cause fires. And that's a sensible move except I don't think those conditions actually panned out. They certainly didn't where I live and same same up north according to this.

So imagine our surprise when, after the time of the shut off was pushed back three times because the winds never picked up, like at all, we all woke up in total darkness anyway. I suppose we can take solace both in the knowledge that we are safe from winds gusting upwards of seven miles per hour and that PG&E's shareholders won't see their portfolios take a hit.

On the upside, when we finally hit our breaking point and go
after the 1%, we'll be able to do so under cover of darkness.

Today in primitive wig technology:

Pictured: garbage cowards, seen here
defending their cowardly garbage silence.
Not pictured: a spine.

Huh? Well, yes, I did just read that the State Department just ordered a key witness in the Ukraine scandal not to appear before Congress this morning in a transparent move on the part of the Trump administration to cover up all those crimes the President has committed, but I want to talk about Star Trek. It's not that I'm disengaged, it's that there's really nothing I can add to the discussion. The President clearly abused his power and the GOP refuses to acknowledge it because they're spineless garbage cowards.

Pictured: people enjoying themselves
outdoors without a tv...somehow.

So, Star Trek. We just got trailers this last weekend for both Discovery season 3 and Picard. Two Star Trek shows at once? It's like we're living in the 90's again. I'm not ashamed to admit that I've been pouring over the new footage, scrubbing back and fourth and looking for all the little details about what to expect-wait, actually I am a little ashamed. That's the act of an obsessed fan. Let's say I casually watched them, shrugged and then went outside for...I don't know, a run? Followed by some kind of social activity.

"We're uh...we're still going to
complain about canon. Just a heads up."

-Fans

Anyway, so the trailers. Spoilers I guess if you haven't season Discovery season two. Still there? Great. It looks like the future into which the ship was hurtled last season is one in which the Federation is in kind of a bad way and it's up to the crew of Discovery to set things back on course. It's something like 900 years later so the writers can finally relax and tell new stories without fans getting all butt-hurt about canon. I mean, who even does that? What? Don't look at me like that, I'm not that bad. Am I?

For real. Stop with this. It's
silly and everyone hates it.

Ok, I am that bad. Here, let me nitpick. I caught the first of the new Short Treks this weekend, the one about Spock and Number One trapped in a turbolift and it was fine. It was fine, really. But here's my issue and buckle up because I'm going to get into the weeds here. The nerd weeds. This is something Discovery started doing in season two and it really bothers me. They keep cutting to these interior shots in which the elevators are careening through a cavernous, Willy Wonka maze of tubes inside the ship and it's just dumb.

It's super nitpicky and any rational human being probably wouldn't care but c'mon. Since when is the ship entirely hollow? It's not the TARDIS. We're nerds, we've been looking at blue prints and diagrams of the Enterprise for decades, the ship simply isn't big enough to accommodate these shots and-yes, I know how I sound.

"Look at these diagrams. Look at them! I ask you where exactly
are these turbolift roller coasters, hmmmmm? Where?"

-Some obsessed fan...not me though

Jean-Luc, c'mon, she's clearly evil or
controlled by a parasite, just stun her.

Fine, I'll move on. The trailer for Picard is increasingly looking like a greatest hits of Star Trek. We see more Seven of Nine from Voyager dual wielding phaser rifles, Hugh the Borg is there, puffy CG Data is in some kind of dream sequence there's even an old Romulan Bird of Prey from the original series. It's bananas. We catch a glimpse of an android factory, Picard losing his shit at some random admiral who, if this is keeping in true TNG tradition is almost certainly corrupt, oh, and Riker and Troi living their best Alaska life! Sold.

It's all very cleverly designed to milk the nostalgia we all feel for TNG and I'm there for it. Nitpick? Well, ok, maybe just one. So I don't want to tell CBS how to future, but they seriously need to get their wig technology together because Data:

I mean, he's a super-sophisticated android built by a genius in the
 twenty-fourth century. Have they never heard of lace front wigs?

Yes, it's a stew and they're covering
bases. It's a metaphor smoothie.

That aside, based on the trailer, I can't hep but wonder if CBS playing isn't playing it safe by handing out such heaping helpings of fan service, Safe or cynical. Discovery is great, but I think they alienated a lot of fans with its more action-focused tone and wild deviations from trek canon. These trailers both look like an attempt to course correct. With Discovery set so far in the future, there's no established continuity to run afoul of. And with Picard throwing so many existing Trek elements into the pot like some kind of nerd stew, it's like they're covering all the bases.

Which, you know, business. It's a business, like a lot of these things are. But the result is an embarrassment of nerd riches. Plenty to keep us occupied while our democracy flies apart all around us.

"As President I'm immune to investigations of and charges related to
my many crimes. So many crimes, beautiful crimes. Everyone says so."

-The President, earlier today