2019: A Year

I don't generally do these year-end kind of things. Not that I haven't done them before... or maybe I haven't? I don't know. I'm not going to go digging back through my posts to find out. I'm pretty sure I haven't done one recently, but I suppose that depends on how you define "recent." But 2019 has been... a year, and I feel like talking about it. Not that I know what I want to say about it, so let's see where this goes.

The last few years have been... tough, to say the least. Mostly, it's the world and the fact that everything is descending into madness and chaos. If you've been around my blog for any length of time, you'll know that I spent 2017 mostly writing political posts. A lot of 2018, too. Not so much in 2019 but not because I didn't want to or don't feel they're important anymore but because they felt redundant or that whatever I was going to write about was no longer exactly relevant by the time I was going to write about it.

So, yeah, there is this existential gloom that has been getting worse since the election in 2016, and it might be okay if it was just the US, but it's the whole fucking world. People everywhere seem to be hellbent on sending us all to Hell. Or turning the world into Hell, even more than it already is, and even the best politicians, the ones really out there trying to make things better, are not able to stand against the tide of right-wing fundamentalism who want us all to burn.

What, then, to say about 2019? Politically, I mean. I don't really know.
I want to be happy about the impeachment, but it's hard to be. McConnell, the truest evil in Washington, is just going to dismiss everything as quickly as he can, so, really, what is the point to all of this? And it's not that I don't understand this idea of "making a statement," but, from a practical standpoint, it's worthless and difficult for me to feel good about.
And don't even get me started on Britain. They seem even more determined than the US to wreck their country. I mean, voting for fucking Boris? Clown Trump? That's more insane than voting for Trump, and Clown Trump makes fun of Trump! Not that every leader outside of the US doesn't make fun of Trump, but Johnson is demonstrably dumber than Trump -- maybe not his actual intellect (because it's very difficult to be more dumb than someone already dumber than a box of rocks), but the total package of him is just... dumb -- and Britain gave him the victory, anyway. They gave it to someone determined, vocally determined, to destroy Britain at all costs.
I don't understand!!!

Apart from all of the meta-angst, this year has just been... difficult. It has been the year of home and vehicular "disasters," some of which I've written about, like the whole sewage escapade, which was, arguably, the worst of the disasters... other than being without a fully functional refrigerator for something along the line of two months, which I haven't written about, but could also be argued to be the worst bit of 2019, especially considering we mostly lived out of an ice chest for three weeks or so. There were also six new tires, one new battery, three calls to towing companies, and one dead computer. Mine. Again. I'm pretty sure there were some other things, too, but I'm not really feeling the need to dredge down past the things that bubbled up on their own. Oh, yeah, and one fire evacuation. There was that, too.

Needless to say, the year has been... challenging. Which is not to say that there haven't been good things that have happened but, overall, the year has been tough. And, I think, in the future when I look back on 2019, the things that are going to most come to mind are the sewage incident and the refrigerator.

I am, indeed, ready for 2019 to be over.

And, man, I hope 2020 brings better things. Which is not to say that it's not going to have its own foreseeable issues, namely, the election. I can't say how much I am not looking forward to this campaign season. But it is what it is and, hopefully, 2020 will end on a much more positive note, with the GOP losing the White House and the Senate and, maybe even, a lot of them going to jail. I can't wait to see the orange on orange look of the "peach" fake-president.

Ghostbusters (a movie review post)

I feel like a movie review should not be a place for political commentary unless, you know, the movie has to do with politics. Or commentary. Or some combination of those things. I feel like I should be able to review this movie on the merits of itself as a movie. However, a certain contingent of inflammatory misogynists have made that impossible. There is no legitimate way to address this movie and the fact that it has women in it and not just in it but starring in it as the main characters.

So... Let's talk about the fact that there are four women starring in it and that some people seem to have let that "destroy" their childhoods:
1. If that they have cast the leads in the new Ghostbusters as women has caused your testicles to get all knotted up, the problem is clearly with you, and you need to go take a long look at yourself in the mirror and figure out what your own issues are. Or see a therapist and discuss your mommy issues. Or something.
2. It's a movie! Oh, wait, let me rephrase that: It's a fucking movie! If you are actually bent out of shape and allowing a movie made more than 30 years after the original to retroactively destroy your childhood, then, again, you need to take yourself back to that mirror and figure out what your problem is. I mean, this isn't Star Wars; it's not that important. Oh, wait, if you were one of those guys who allowed the prequels to "rape" your childhood (that is the way those guys put it, right?), you still need to be in front of that mirror. It's not like them putting in a new cast for this movie changes the experience you had of the original.
3. I find it unsurprising but somewhat interesting that the demographic screaming about the women stars of this movie are the same demographic who support Trump, which also matches the demographic who voted yes on the Brexit vote. It reduces all of this to a white, male power thing, and I'm just going to say that the only people threatened by equality are those who have had an unfair advantage. Again, go look at yourself in the mirror and don't come away from it until you can recognize that you're not better than other people and the fact that you feel threatened is entirely on you. And it's a fucking movie! It's not like it's walking up to you on the street and punching you in the balls. Then, you'd have a right to complain. There shouldn't even be any metaphoric balls involved in this.

Speaking of all of this, one of the most brilliant moments in the movie is when they're reading actual comments people (men) made about the movie just from the announcement that it would have a female cast.

And speaking of the women, they, also. were brilliant. I already love Kristen Wiig, and she doesn't disappoint. Ironically, this is a somewhat more serious role for her in that it doesn't rely on her particular brand of awkwardness as the basis for her character. She has her moments, but it's a more three-dimensional part than what she's known for (and so much more satisfying than her recent role in The Martian).

Melissa McCarthy is also a bit more toned down for Ghostbusters. Despite her initial appearance wearing some weird gizmo hat, she is the voice of reason in the movie. She wears the part well. Which is not to say that she turns off the funny, because she doesn't. He ongoing feud with Bennie, the Chinese delivery guy. is great.

I was unfamiliar with both Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones before seeing this, so I have nothing to compare to in regards to their performances, but they were both great, especially Kate McKinnon. In many ways, McKinnon stole every scene she was in by being this crazy professor type, kind of a cross between Doc Brown from Back to the Future and Dr. Frankenstein from Young Frankenstein with a dash of Q (the James Bond one). And that might make it sound like Leslie Jones is the weak link here, but she's totally not. The four women worked well together bringing the same kind of chemistry to the screen as the original quartet of men did.

But let's talk about the movie in general:
I laughed. A lot. To put it more specifically, I laughed throughout the movie, and, for a movie meant to be a comedy, it did its job. More than did its job. In fact, I probably laughed more in this one than I ever did in the original.

Which is not to say it doesn't provide some scares. The opening scene is pretty scary, and I thought for a moment that my daughter was going to ask to leave, it freaked her out so much.

Speaking of the opening scene, it features Zach Woods, who is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Mostly, I know him for his own special brand of awkward but, in his smaller roles,he's shown that he's capable of more than that. This is no exception.

And then there's Chris Hemsworth. He's almost worth the price of admission himself. I really didn't expect much from Hemsworth after Thor. I mean, he was a great Thor -- he was Thor -- but I figured that kind of role was all he was ever going to bring to the table, but he's shown that he has a lot of range, and his role has the clueless receptionist was fantastic.

The only real negative I have is...

Oh, wait, this is a spoiler, so close your ears and say "la la la" or something.

The only real negative I have about the movie is the bad guy:
1. That there was a "bad guy" at all, and
2. That the actor playing the bad guy lacked any real menace. In fact, the only good part with the bad guy was once he had possessed Kevin, and that part was hilarious.

I don't really know why I dislike there being a villain, but it just felt a little too convenient, I guess. And it was so much "the world hasn't been fair to me, waaah!" He was just lame, I suppose. It would have been better if it had just been the ghosts driving the conflict.

The movie is a winner, though, despite the lackluster villain. Unless you just have no sense of humor or can't get over the fact that there are no y chromosomes among the leads, there is no reason you shouldn't like this movie.

Oh, and the cameos are great.