Legacy strip embarrasses self again

 It's happened again. A legacy strip tries to be groovy with new technology and just embarrasses itself.

In this one, Sgt. Snorkel said he's going to stream a TV show while eating snacks. That's it. Someone on the Walker team said, "Hey there's this new thing called streaming. Wouldn't it be funny if Sarge ate snacks while streaming?"

This is what  people do. How is this funny? Is there no one at King Features to stop this?

And everyone else on the team said, "um, yeah, good work, let's hit the links!"

Blondie tries to keep up with 20-year-old technology, fails

Oh good lord. Another legacy strip pointing out 20-year-old technology as if it's new and the joke is "this new technology does what it was designed to do, isn't that a hoot!" 

The joke here is Dagwood's neighbors are keeping up with what's going on in the neighborhood with its Facebook neighborhood page.

That's the joke. That's it.

That's what's supposed to happen.

Isn't there an editor at King Features whose job it is to call cartoonists and say, "Hey, yeah, that strip you turned in about how it's funny that Dagwood's neighbors are keeping up with what's going on in the neighborhood by reading a Facebook neighborhood page? Yeah, how is this funny?"

Until then, apparently it's my job.

And speaking of Blondie's pastry maker ...  OK, Blondie introduces a new character, and it's been a year and ... what has she brought to the strip? Anything? Anything at all?

I hate to be negative, and they should be commended for trying. Would it kill them to be a little subversive. If you want to keep up with the times, read "Pearls Before Swine."

I've given up on Beetle Bailey, it will never be funny. But I have hope for Blondie. C'mon, Dagwood was the slacker-at-work 60 years before Homer Simpson, and every once in a while he'll surprise me. 

Dennis the Menace tries to be relevant, fails

First of all, I've been paying my bills online for about 20 years, so it's more alarming than funny the artist/writer just found out paying bills online is a thing; secondly, in which universe  does Dennis the Menace live in which postal carriers wear jackets with lapels and neckties?

 

Revisiting Disney's "The Strongest Man in the World" or When Disney comedies were awful

 So I get Disney Plus which is worth it for WandaVision and The Mandalorian, but when I feel nostalgic, it's great for having childhood memories ruined when I revisit Disney comedies from the '60s and '70s.

When "The Strongest Man in the World" came out in 1975, I saw the commercials, wanted to see it in a theater, but never saw it until it was on "The Wonderful World of Disney" a couple years later. And I vaguely remember liking it then.

But I watched it last night, and wow, what a terrible film!

First, some background: In 1959, Walt Disney produced his first live-action comedy, "The Shaggy Dog." It was made on a TV budget, and pulled in movie blockbuster returns.

And, it would become the template for Disney comedies for the next two decades: Every comedy would have the magic/science hook (turning into a dog, Flubber, invisibility), sight gags galore, some manner of  peril ("the college is about to be sold to an evil real estate developer!), ending with a slapstick police chase. Then sequels which would feature recurring villains. Some villains would show up in other films. Oddly enough, The Shaggy Dog didn't get its own sequel until some 27 years later, appropriately bookending the whole genre.)

The formula had gotten pretty old by this point, but the big surprise for me that I didn't notice the first time was Kurt Russell, the top-billed star, is hardly in this movie at all! He disappears for large chunks and instead we have an interminable scene of Joe Flynn comically impressing the board of directors (all doughy white guys, except for a welcome Eve Arden) with feats of strength. Then an interminable scene of Cesar Romero getting stuck on a ladder. Then Russell's sidekick Schuyler gets kidnapped by Romero, and gets hypnotic accupuncture (?!).

Very little of this has anything to do with the plot, and worst of all, none of it is funny.

I'm guessing Kurt Russell, in his third go at playing Dexter Reilly, was more interested in expanding his career and had it in his contract that he didn't have to show up. So pretty much, the old vets had to (ironically) do the heavy lifting.

A lot of missed opportunities here. If it wanted to really satirize the university system in America, there would have been many more opportunities (big money student athlete scandals, slobs vs, snobs, legacy entrenchment) instead of Joe Flynn doing a trapeze act.

In fairness, in the last ten minutes, this low-energy comedy gets its act together and starts being funny. It finally realizes the comic possibilities: Russell uses his strength to fight off a room full of Cesar Romero's thugs, the (inevtitable) police chase where Russell  has to push his feet through the floorboard of a super-charged car to keep it from speeding away, the total disintegration of the car just as it reaches its final destination (later stolen by "The Blues Brothers," but I suspect in had been stolen from the silent comedies), and Russell swallowing the last of the super serum from behind a closed curtain and the curtain opens and we just see the smoke in the air. Subtle for once.

But, if it wasn't the end of an era, it was clearly winding down. It would be Russell's last live-action film for Disney for decades (when Disney became cool again), The old-time studio system of reusing the same character actors had been dead for a while, Disney just hadn't caught on, and then 'Star Wars' came along. Disney could no longer make family movies that only appealed to children while boring their parents.

So if you're a certain age, call it up on Disney Plus and fast forward to the last ten minutes.

Some notes:

The Dexter Reilly comedies really screwed me over as far as my expectations for what college would be like. 

Disney was extremely loyal to its character actors, they'd show up again and again for decades.

I counted one black person in the whole film. An Asian guy played a villain, so I'll take it. Two little Asian kids were seen.

Joe Flynn died before the movie came out, but his voice would be heard a couple years later in "The Rescuers."

It's amazing how much Kurt Russell here looks like de-aged Kurt Russell in the first five minutes of "Guardians of the Galaxy Part 2." The SFX guys must have used his Dexter Reilly films as a template.

Mandalorian Season 2 finale. Spoilers galore, stop now!

In 1977, when the paperback novelization of "Star Wars" came out, the subtitle wasn't "A New Hope." The subtitle was "From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker."

Let's think about that. Maybe it was Georgie Lucas' idea , maybe it was from the publisher, but at some point in time, the focus point of the Star Wars universe wasn't the dysfunctional Skywalker family, it was Luke! Further adventures were perhaps planned. Luke heading off to different galaxies to face different (non-Empire) bad guys each film. It wasn't going to be all about Anakin Skywalker, the Empire and an ever growing collection of characters.

Imagine a series of films where Darth Vader doesn't even show up! Imagine "Star Wars II" where Luke leaves Han and Leia to roam the galaxy dispensing justice with his badass light saber, like some intergalactic Clint Eastwood. Each film a new adventure!

That didn't happen.

I loved "Empire Strikes Back," but I sheltered a little disappointment in the back of my mind, especially as all the prequels and sequels never got away from the Skywalker family's problems.

Luke as a standalone badass would never happen ...

Until the second season finale of "The Mandalorian." 

Finally, the promise made in 1977 is fulfilled, we finally get to see Luke be a real Jedi Knight, kicking asses and taking names.

Overdue, but it makes up for his crappy treatment in the last few Star Wars films.

Tales from the Bronze Age

This is mandatory viewing for anyone who grew up reading DC Comics in the late 60s, early 70s. Longtime comic writer/onetime Jack Kirby assistant Mark Evanier interviews DC writer/editor/onetime publisher Paul Levitz about going from 14 year old fan to publisher. It's two fanboys-turned-pros who discuss their early disillusionment with the industry and how they made things better for artists.

Levitz has some horror stories about how DC treated its talent; but there's also some hope toward the end when Levitz (and others) worked to give neglected artists their due (and royalties).

Due to the time difference (Evanier is in LA, Levitz is in NY) Levitz seems to be getting sleepy toward the end, and some of the questions from viewers that Evanier introduces aren't questions at all, just comments, leaving the low-energy Levitz to just give one-word non-answers.

But there are a lot of stories about your favorite DC artists an inkers from the silver/bronze age and what the staff at DC really felt about them. (most cringe-worthy: DC executive tells Evanier to tell Kirby to try to draw more like Curt Swan.)

Keeping up with the times ... or not

I was impressed by Blondie on Sunday because Dagwood was working from home, and I thought, wow, Blondie's going to acknowledge and satirize the current pandemic. Pretty brave for a strip from 1930. Then the following week's dailies ignored the whole thing until Thursday when Dagwood made a "Social Distancing" joke, which actually, isn't bad. But, if they're all in the office are they not quarantining Dagwood? They seem to want it both ways.

To Dean Young I say: Sin boldly! Keep the Bumsteads home like the rest of us. Let Dagwood slowly drive Blondie mad until she's plotting his murder! Let Dagwood show up at an office Zoom meeting while in the bath tub, eating a sandwich!

Blondie's been slowly keeping up with the times and not doing a half bad job. This isn't a crisis, it's an opportunity.

Not everyone can grapple with changing times....

Which leads me to today's Beetle Bailey. Another strip where a character participates in a technological activity and that is the sum of the joke.

Here Gen. Halftrack says he hasn't had any complaints since he took down the suggestion box, and he's pleased with himself until Gizmo tells him that people complain on Twitter.

Yep, that's the joke, people complain about things on Twitter.

That's all they got.

Let's look at others in this astonishingly out-of-touch vein: Here and here.

I imagine the next jokes will involve people using their iPhones to call their friends, and people using TikTok to post videos.

Dagwood in Quarantine

Some props must go out to  Stephen Pastis' "Pearls Before Swine" for being the first or among the first comic strips to acknowledge, and satirize the Covid-19 pandemic. I kind of expect a strip as subversive as "Pearls" to tackle  a pandemic, but most cartoonists could be forgiven for pretending it's not going on for the sake of keeping things light on the comics page.

So the Blondie team should be doubly congratulated for keeping the strip's characters home. Think about it, a beloved strip that has kept one foot firmly in 1930 should be given a free pass during a global crisis, but no, Dean Young managed to wring humor out of a crisis without even mentioning the crisis!

They didn't have to do it, but I'm glad they did.

(Addendum: Life is back to normal in the dailies that followed this strip, so I'm hoping they had been done well in advance, but once they've run, the Bumsteads will be in quarantine every day of the week, we'll see.)

Beetle Bailey why have you forsaken me?

Once again, I hate to be one of those negative bloggers. The world doesn't need more negativity. But really what's going on in the Beetle Bailey writer's room?

Have they just given up?

Are they just using a random dialogue generator?

Plato is standing between two women, so Beetle surmises that it "looks like it's a good time to be a nerd."

Based on what? Two women chatting with Plato? That's it. So we set up the faulty premise.

In the next panel, Killer dressed like a stereotypical nerd to pick up women at the library because, you know, that's where nerdy women hang out. And nerdy women love nerdy men.

You can tell he's dressed like a nerd because he's wearing a bow tie and even his sweater has a pocket protector. And plaid pants. And he's carrying a book.

And it's funny because ...

No, it's not funny at all.

Film review: Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker

It's another greatest hits package from the Disney/Lucasfilm factory. New characters doing the same thing. Kind of like "Home Alone 2" and 3.

It's the same, just bigger. We get a "I find your lack of faith disturbing," scene but instead of simply the officer getting strangled, he gets thrown into the ceiling. We get the little guy rises up against the big empire scene again, but instead of Ewoks, it's a kazillion little space ships; we also get Emperor Palpatine taunting the hero at his/her darkest moment, AGAIN with Palpatine.

I kept thinking of the commentary track on "The Phantom Menace" where a special effect guy is bragging about how they got a hundred ships passing by the window in the background of a scene, and I'm thinking, y'know, three ships would have been fine.

I'm a little disappointed, I really thought when Disney announced they'd wrap up the Star Wars trilogy of trilogies, they would have planned the whole thing out *before* the cameras started rolling. No, no, they just made it up as they went along with no forethought into foreshadowing or comprehensibility.

Film Review: Little Women

I walked in cold; I had never read the book, nor seen any of the semi-annually made remakes. And granted I should have expected a film entitled "Little Women" to be on the girly side .. but.. this was really really girly.

Would it have killed them to throw a bone to the men in the audience by including a car chase or an Infinity Gauntlet?

As it is it's the most beautifully filmed episode of "The Waltons" ever. Not that that's a bad thing.

Director Greta Gerwig shakes things up by bouncing back and forth in time, and the highlight is her meta ending in which she makes fun of a typical Hollywood ending while still using it. She has it both ways and it's pretty clever.

Beautiful cinematography, great acting, Meryl Streep! It's going to win a ton of Oscars, but when you boil it all down, it's a movie for girls.

Review: The Mandalorian

The "Mandalorian" and Joss Whedon's "Firefely" belong to the same genre. I'm calling it the Look-we're-clever,-you-think-you're-watching-a-science-fiction-show-but-it's-really-a-western genre.
Both shows are so much like westerns I can't help but think, "why didn't they just make them westerns?"

In the case of "Mandalorian," when I say it's a western, I'm not saying movie western, I'm saying TV western, which is really a whole different animal, isn't it?

I kept thinking of those 1960s TV westerns with Clint Eastwood or Steve McQueen each playing a brave hero who's reluctant to use his gun, but will do what he has to. There were dozens of westerns like this on TV in the 1960s, they might have burnt themselves out. Movie directors have two hours to tell their story. TV shows have lots of time to fill. Plots were recycled ... a lot.

And that's what I was thinking about while watching the first three episodes of "The Mandalorian." It's not all that different from one of those old TV westerns. With the exception of a few Star Wars characters, it's not a Star Wars spinoff at all.

It's really closer to "Son of Steve McQueen's Character" in "Wanted: Dead or Alive," or "Son of Clint Eastwood's Character" in "Rawhide."

But, the TV western is dead, and the only way to get people to watch them is to  put spaceships in them.

My other problem with this show is: Is the main character really going to keep his helmet on during the whole run of the show? There's a scene with about six people, all wearing helmets conveying exposition, and it slowly became an episode of the "Power Rangers." This is going to go over great in foreign markets.

How do they expect us to get emotionally attached to a protagonist if we never see his face? I'm sure the Lucasfilm people are thinking, "This is a forever character, like C3PO or Chewbacca, we  don't need an actor!" You can get away with that for the movies, but TV is, once again, a different animal.

Update: I finally caught all 8 episodes and must say the last three episodes are very good. There's a 'turn-the-tables moment in "The Prisoner" episode where the whole show turned around for me. Things start moving much faster and plot threads that started in the first two episodes are finally wrapped up in a very exciting manner. Suddenly I started caring about Baby Yoda.

And he takes off his helmet, which he should do more often.

Film review: Knives Out

Just when I was thinking "Knives Out" was the funniest, best written episode of "Murder She Wrote" ever, doesn't Jessica Fletcher appear on the screen. This is Rian Johnson's wink to the audience, he's reminding us to not take this seriously, it's just a really big budget, better written episode of "Murder She Wrote." At one point a detective says the creepy gothic mansion where the murder takes place is like a Clue board and that's exactly the game you're playing.

A rich cranky geezer (Christopher Plummer playing a more delightful J. Paul Getty) turns up dead on the night of his 85th birthday party and as the suspects tell their stories it appears he was going to end all of their allowances. So we have a creepy old mansion (complete with secret entranceways) and a bunch of eccentric family members who'd do anything to keep the family riches. This is an homage to old-timey Hollywood mysteries which would work wonderfully on a double bill with "The Thin Man."

The detective is Daniel Craig having the time of his life as a southern-drawling Hercule Poirot, yes he's a genius detective, but the humor comes in when some obvious clues are playing out right under his nose.

Also playing against type is Chris Evans, trading in the squeaky clean Captain America for the prickish rich grandson

The breakout star is Ana de Armes  as the family maid. As the only suspect who's not a scheming family member, she has no motive, or is that what they want us to think? The character has a unique tell when she's lying and de Armes makes it hysterical or suspenseful. It's an exceptionally clever conceit: A whodunnit character incapable of lying, imagine the possibilities.


To tell anything else would spoil the tightly constructed story, but if you enjoy a good, funny whodunnit, by all means go see it.

Dagwood saves the day

I've been pointing out the disastrous results when Beetle Bailey tries to be hip to what the kids are doing nowadays (mostly technology.) The problem is the creative team doesn't know enough about a new technology to make fun of it; they think that simply mentioning it will be hilarious.

This made today's Blondie doubly hilarious. Dagwood takes his first Uber ride; this could have been a mess if the Beetle Bailey team had done this, but Dagwood saves the day by (literally) pulling the punch line out of his back pocket. I didn't see it coming, yet it's totally in his character.

And I laughed.

Lost classic review: 1st Issue Special #9 Doctor Fate

Joe Kubert cover is just the beginning of  the issue's great art.

When all the golden age DC characters were getting reboots in the late-50s, early 60s, Dr. Fate was somehow left behind. Sure he got a couple of Showcase outings (teamed up with Hour-Man!), but for the most part, he was relegated to the JLA- JSA team-ups.

The first great attempt to establish him as an A-lister would be in the mid-70s First Issue Special by Marty Pasko and Walt Simonson. Not quite a reboot, but Pasko and Simonson redefined him for the next 40 years.

First the art, yeah, Murphy Anderson was good for the Showcase issues, but holy crap, Simonson's work here is a revelation.We had never seen him this way. Simonson has always said Kirby was a big inspiration on him. I don't see it in the faces or bodies, but like Kirby he has a gift for making the characters look like they're jumping off the page. Instead of the shading lines on Fate's helmet that had been done historically, Simonson keeps the helmet clean, and it's striking. In the old books, if he cast a spell, usually lightning bolts would emanate from his fingers, here, it's magic symbols forming geometric patterns. The attention to detail even extends to the characters' word balloons, each character's word ballon has a unique shape. It's just amazing.

The story keeps up and obviously inspired the art. An old foe (like ancient-Egyptian mummy old) returns from the dead to kill Fate to impress his god. Havoc ensues. Meanwhile, Kent Nelson's wife Inza overcomes her superhero wife fatigue to help him (and the mage inhabiting his body) independently from him. For perhaps the first time, Inza is not a hostage.

It's just beautifully drawn and wonderfully written, and makes me wish it was picked up as an ongoing series with this creative team.

Beetle Bailey's futile search for relevance ... again

In the Beetle Bailey writers' room.

"Let's do a joke for the kids."
"Yeah, I know, we'll have a joke about the YouTube."
"Yeah, kids today like the YouTube."
"What's the YouTube?"
"Um, I think the kids today use it to prank one another."
"OK, I got it, Lt. Fuzz will get pranked on the YouTube, and the punchline will be, "You've been pranked on the YouTube!"
"Good one, let's hit the golf course!"

Review: Spider-Man: Far From Home (no spoilers)

After the heavy, epic Avengers: Endgame, we get the lighter Far From Home, and it's a welcome change in mood.

After a quick and clever explainer of life in the Marvel Universe after "Endgame," we learn Peter Parker just wants to go to Europe on his class trip and leave super-heroing behind. but Nick Fury, and some inter-dimensional monsters have other plans.

He gets help from Jake Gylanhaal's Mysterio, an inter dimensional super-hero whom they hint could fill Iron Man's rocket-laden boots.

As the class goes from European destination to destination, it brings to mind "If it's Tuesday, it Must be Belgium," and other silly-Americans-in-foreign-country movies. Only with superheroes.

Meanwhile, poor Peter has to battle monsters while working up the courage to tell classmate MJ what he feels about her.  There should be some kind of award for Tom Holland, his Peter Parker might be the closest depiction to the character in the comics; he's not a super-hero, he's a kid whose immense powers are tempered by a teenage mindset. The most important thing for him isn't fighting the monster, it's kissing the girl! And he carries this believably.

I was a little disappointed in the beginning at the absence of a bad guy. He's just going to beat up monsters? But a villain comes along soon enough and makes up for his earlier absence.

The film ends with mid-credit and post-credits sequences. The latter is kind of confusing, but the former is a must-watch which made the audience I saw the film with go crazy.

.

Film Review: Booksmart

On the last day of high school, two overachievers find out the party-crazy classmates they've looked down upon for years are going to top universities also. The more daring of the two convinces her bff that they have to cram four years of partying into one night to make up for the time they spent studying.

I usually complain when plots are very simple, but the characters are so endearing, the dialogue is so laugh-out-loud funny ... and raunchy ...and the pacing is so relentless, that you can't help but get sucked in.

I saw bits of the party sequence from "Sixteen Candles" and a lot of "American Graffiti," as the teens hit their coming-of-age moment with some hard truths. The ensemble cast could have been stereotypes but the more we get to know them, the more we want to get to know them.

The highlights are Beanie Feldstein as the class president who wonders why her inauguration wasn't celebrated as wildly as the last day of school, and Billie Lourde's ubiquitous, maniac space cadet. My favorite joke is when the girls start speaking in Chinese because of course they speak Chinese.

This is what "Bridesmaids" should have been, raunchy, smart and fun instead of cheap diarrhea jokes.

TV Review: Reef Break

"Reef Break" is a throwback to the light, breezy TV detective shows of the 70s where the detective is loaded with personality, may have a shady past, and is much better at police work than the actual police.

This isn 't a bad thing. Poppy Montgomery has a lot of personality as a surfer/ former smuggler who becomes an under-the-radar fixer for the governor of Reef Break, an island paradise she once, and now, calls home. Not really believable, but just enjoy the scenery and relax.

It's a mixture of "It Takes a Thief," and "Magnum PI". The pilot had twists and turns I saw coming, but hey, it's summer, you want something to go down like a cool Pina colada.

Review: Murder Mystery

As a big fan of the "Thin Man" films, I always thought it was a lost opportunity that they never sent Nick and Nora Charles to Europe. The first film was set in New York, the second in San Francisco, the third ... back to New York.

Noooo.

The third film was the chance to make "The Thin Man in London," or "The Thin Man in Paris." These would have been a much-needed boost to a film series whose producers thought giving them a baby was the boost they needed.

Adam Sandler is a police officer who takes wife Jennifer Aniston to Europe on a long-promised honeymoon. The blue collar couple get invited on a yacht where we meet some eccentric soon-to-be murder suspects as well as the nasty soon-to-be murder victim. This has all the elements of a Thin Man film (and a bunch of Agatha Christie mysteries), and though Adam Sandler plays a rough-around-the-edges police detective, Jennifer Aniston does a good job filling in for Myrna Loy. It's been years since "Friends," and I've forgotten how she can make any line very funny.

The pair eventually get framed for the murder (don't think about it too hard) and while on the run comically bicker as they try to find the real killer.  It's light and breezy and as a screwball comedy is just as good as any from the 1940s.

We get the added bonus of location shooting in Monaco and Lake Como and it's all very Hollywood.

Its only false notes happen in the beginning when Sandler schemes to keep his wife from finding out he didn't get a promotion. This is a plot you'd see on "The Honeymooners" and hasn't aged well. The other misfire is the totally gratuitous chase scene tacked on the end.

We may never see the "Thin Man" reboot I've been hoping for, but until then, this is very close.