Cinema Sunday: Atlantis - The Lost Empire

When you live in a house with devoted Disney fans, it's hard to imagine that there are any animated features we have not seen.

Well, there are. 

A few weeks ago, the family gathered here in the Fortress of Ineptitude to watch Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

This 2001 film had the temerity to not have any singing and no anthropomorphic comic side kicks.  Atlantis: The Lost Empire is a straight  up science-fantasy action-adventure flick that would be done as a quasi live action movie with a heaping helping of CGI and something for Dwayne Johnson to do.  

Atlantis: The Lost Empire also has the audacity to be a mostly hand drawn affair even as the zeitgeist was driving animated films towards totally CGI productions. 

The films opens with a prologue of epic proportions as a tide wave sinks Atlantis. Then we pick up with the year 1914 where in 1914, Milo Thatch is all hot and bothered to find the lost continent and thinks he has a way with The Shepherd's Journal, an ancient manuscript containing directions to the long lost island.  

Rich dudes at the Smithsonian have their heads up their butts and won't pony up the dough. But Preston B. Whitmore, an eccentric millionaire and a friend of Milo's grandfather is ready and willing to fund this expedition.  

Milo joins up with a team of specialists led by Commander Rourke and his crew:

Helga Sinclair, woman of mystery and danger
Vinny, demolitions expert
Mole, geologist
Dr. Sweet, medical officer
Audrey, mechanic
Mrs. Packard, a radio operator
Cookie, the mess cook. 

Everyone's a bit shady.  

They set out in the Ulysses, a massive submarine.

Don't get attached to it.  The ship gets wrecked early on. 

By a monstrous Leviathan, a giant robot lobster.  

Yes, that's what I said: a giant robot lobster.  

I should point out here that Atlantis: The Lost Empire has the highest death count of any Disney animated movie ever. Whoever drowned in the tidal wave that smashed into Atlantis and the majority of the crew on the Ulysses are all fatalities who will not get a toy action figure in a Happy Meal. 

And we're just getting started.  

After the destruction of the Ulysses, Milo and the surviving crew traverse a network of caves and tunnels and what all until they discover (Ta da!) Atlantis.  

Milo befriends Kida of Atlantis who appears to be a young woman but is waaaaaay older than she looks. Milo helps Kida uncover the nature of the Heart of Atlantis, the source of power that keeps Atlantis safe underwater and contributes to the people's longevity.   

And the reason Commander Rourke is there! Exploration? Discovery? Knowledge? Science? Screw all that! It's the Heart of Atlantis that's the big draw here. Something that powerful has got to be worth a hell of a lot of money to some damn body.  

The shady crew was hoping to make some bucks of this deal but damn, Rourke is up to some bad shit. Taking the Heart of Atlantis will leave the secret city defenseless and it's inhabitants dead. So the shady crew opt to stand with Milo. 

There's a big damn battle in a big damn volcano with a lot more deaths including Rourke.

"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!"

The crew returns home except for Milo who stays behind in Atlantis to canoodle with Kida because, who can blame him? 

And it seems like there's a lot going on, consider this: the initial draft was 155 pages with a projected running time of about 2 hours. Since the overage Disney animated film runs 90 minutes, there was a lot of cutting going on.  

Which may explain why each one of Rourke's crew gets some specific quirks but very little time for actual character development. They're going to help Milo save Atlantis in lieu of big bucks? Well, yay for them but seriously, where did that come from? 

The animation has a distinctive look based on the art of comic book artist Mike Mignola, the creator of Hellboy and the artist for the Victorian set Batman tale, Gotham By Gaslight. 

The voice cast is very good with Michael J. Fox perfect for the role of Milo. James Garner as Rourke captures the commander's confidence/arrogance perfectly.  Leonard Nimoy as Kida's father, the King of Atlantis, lends some gravitas to the proceedings. 

It's was interesting to hear Don Novello provide the voice of Vinny; Novello is most famous for his persona as Father Guido Sarducci on Saturday Night Live during the 70s and 80s. 

Another distinctive vocal presence in the movie is Florence Stanley as Packard. An elderly sarcastic chain-smoker, Packard is pretty much Florence.  If you watch Atlantis: The Lost Empire on Disney+, there is a parental warning about smoking. This character is the reason for that warning.   

Sadly, Jim Varney's role as Cookie was his last. Famous for his "Hey Vern" commercial character and as the voice of Slink-Dog in the first Toy Story movies, Varney passed away while the film was in production.  

Overall, Atlantis: The Lost Empire is an epic tale of action, adventure and twisty plot that is a bit ahead of it's time and perhaps not suited to the Disney animation formula. But it is a fun movie and deserves better than being regarded a Disney failure or misstep. 

Songs For Saturday: ELO

 

This week, Songs For Saturday will spotlight 3 favorite songs by Jeff Lynne and his Electric Light Orchestra.

Let's give it up for ELO! 

Last week, I posted a link to a jazz age take on ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky".

This week, here is Jeff Lynne is own damn self with ELO and a kick ass live version of "Mr. Blue Sky".   

About 40 years ago, there was a move called Xanadu that combined disco, skating, goddesses, Olivia Newton-John AND Fred Astaire and the music of Jeff Lynne and the Electric Light Orchestra. 

Here is the opening theme from that movie, "I Am Alive" by ELO.  

For more of a deep give in the ELO discography, here is an epic tune with a sci-fi edge called "Twilight".  

And that is that for today's Songs For Saturday.

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive.   

Agatha All Along

Today is the day, the finale of a wild 9 episode journey called WandaVision.  

Over 9 weeks, WandaVision has piqued our curiosity and engaged our imaginations and it's kind of a shame it has to end.

It's a rarity in today's television landscape that there is still such a thing as appointment television, a show so interesting and captivating that it demands viewing the instant it is available. 

Here in the Fortress of Ineptitude, there is no delay in getting the new episode watched Friday night.  Last week, my daughter Randie had to work late on Friday and was as late as 10 PM getting home. And she had to get up the next morning to go back to work.

But screw all that! We were down to watch WandaVision! 

By being released weekly, WandaVision invites and encourages analysis and debate over the show's various mysteries and oddities. 

If all 9 episodes had been dumped at once like Netflix, would such wonders as Agatha All Along had entered the cultural zeitgeist as strongly and pervasively?

Here is footage from a car commercial featuring Kathryn Hahn incorporating this catchy little ditty. 

Agatha All Along is inspired by the theme from the classic sitcom The Munsters.  So let's mash'em up. 

And there are hundreds of variations of this theme using puppets, video game animations and more. 

Today, the journey will be at an end. WandaVision has set a high bar for itself to deliver an epic and satisfying landing. I'll discuss that further in next week's Tuesday TV Touchbase.

But WandaVision has set a high bar for all the other Marvel series to follow on Disney*. Will my family insist on watching the Falcon & Winter Soldier with the same fevered intensity each Friday an episode drops? 

WandaVision has prompted a galvanic reaction in pop culture I haven't seen in years. It will be missed and it will be hard to match.   

Superboy Meets Bee Boy

 

The I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You Anniversary Spectacular!!! (Spoiler: Very Much Lacking the Spectacular)

It began innocently enough on   Saturday, March 2, 2013

"Hi! Welcome to my blog!"

Yesterday marked 8 years gone since that innocent beginning. 

8 years of I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You!  

Today we gather to celebrate I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You. Or to bury it. 

Your mileage may vary. 

(Click on the music and continue reading.) 

Looking at posts from that first month in March 2013 certainly begs the question, what the hell was I doing?

Doctor Who is NEW: "The Bells of Saint John"

Wow! Matt Smith was still the Doctor?

And Now A Word From Our Sponsor

A recurring feature where an entire blog post was dedicated to the commercial message of ostensibly a sponsor of this blog. My favorites were for Plain White Unmarked Van Emporium. 

"For whatever God forsaken, illegal, unethical, misguided thing you're gonna do, you're gonna need a van!"  

SEX! Tales of the STRANGE and the PERVERSE!

If you can conceive of it, it can be made into a kink. 
For example, the love of a woman for her garbage disposal.

Hey, Kids! Politics: Top 10 GOP Sequester Solutions

Yes, even then, politics sullied the crystal clear waters of 
I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You Lake.  

In the early years, there was more of a mad cap randomness to this blog. 

It Came Through Bruce Wayne's Window. 

Each week, different shit flew threw Bruce Wayne's window, changing his destiny as a crime fighter. 

"A giraffe! It's a sign! I shall become a giraffe!" 

The Adventures of Nok-Nok, the Interrupting Cow.

8 damn weeks of variations on this knock-knock joke.

Knock-knock!

Who's there?

The interrupting cow!

The interrupt---

MOO!

8 damn weeks! 

The Internet Is For Corn.

For about two months, I made corn pervy! 

I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You in recent years has become less stupid.

I want to feel the stupid again!

These days, I tend to run a more structured ship with three days of the week specified for music (Songs For Saturday), movies (Cinema Sunday) and TV (Tuesday TV Touchbase).  

Even with the other four days of the week being opened for anything, I tend to pontificate on politics more than I anticipated I would.  But I have determined that even in my small, inconsequential corner of the internet, I will document what appears to be inevitable disintegration of the American body politic and the erosion of the grand American democratic experiment.  

If in the future when we're living on rats in the wild and I wonder how the hell did we get here, I will have a record, my personal account of our slide into chaos and anarchy. 

And the reason for our descent slide into chaos and anarchy will be that Ted Cruz is a lying fuck bastard. 

Repeat after me: Ted Cruz is a lying fuck bastard! 

Ted Cruz is a lying fuck bastard! 

Amen.

Amen! 

I will have also documented Kimberly Guilfoyle's legs which still remains the most frequently viewed posts in the 8 year history of I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You . 

I never promised I had standards. 

Never the less, I will apologize for the posts about Kimberly Guilfoyle's legs. 

But hell, they get eyeballs to this damn blog. 

I regret nothing! 

On the occasion of the eighth anniversary of I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You, I should thank some people. 

My daughter Randie, the subject of many a blog post and who wrote a few of them as well. She is my most loyal reader and thoughtful critic. And by "thoughtful critic", she finds all the misspellings.  

My wife Andrea who is gracious enough to accept "sorry, I got to write something for my blog" as a legitimate excuse. 

Mike Sterling who's own superior blog has name checked and linked to 'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You.  

The perverts who come here for the Kimberly Guilfoyle posts. 

I REGRET NOTHING!!!!

Well, that is as they say is that.  

8 years of I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You? You would of thunk it! 

If you're reading this, thanks for reading.

If you're not reading this, keep up the good work.

And always remember to be good to one another.   

Tuesday TV Touchbase: WandaVision, Mr. Mayor and Jeopardy

 

WandaVision

Just as episode 4 took us on a trip back in time to give some context to the 3 previous episodes, episode 8 of WandaVision gives us a go in the Way Back machine to offer some insight to what the hell is going on. 

And I mean waaaaaay back, specifically 1693 in Salem, MA where a witch trial is going on. But it's not what you think.  

Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) stands accused of being a bad witch by a coven of other witches that includes her own mother.  The coven's  efforts to execute Agatha backfire as she simply absorbs their powers as her own, leaving being a collection of emaciated skeletons. 

Which brings us to where episode 7 left off with Wanda Maximoff in Agatha's basement and the kick off of another time trip with Wanda and Agatha revisiting key events in Wanda's past.

We learn of her childhood love of American sitcoms ranging from the 1950's to the 2000's.  

Episode 7's trippy song (which is still stuck in my head) revealed it was "Agatha all along" but the heme of episode 8 could be it was Wanda all along too.

The Stark Industries rocket didn't fail to blow up because it was a dud but was influenced by Wanda's nascent abilities to stop it with a probability hex. The experiments by HYDRA did not give Wanda super powers but awakened the powers she already had. 

It seems SWORD director Heyward has been lying. (Color me surprised!) Yes, Wanda did go to SWORD HQ to retrieve Vision's body but finding it disassembled and Vision's soul gone, Wanda leaves without the body. 

She goes to Westview, NJ where we some familiar faces and locales but the town has seen better days. Wanda goes to a lot that Vision had purchased for a home. 

And Wanda Maximoff just frigging loses it! 

Rage and grief pour out of her in a tornado of crimson energy as Westview remakes itself into a town of 1950s sitcom idealism, a house forms on the lot and the Vision lives again in glorious black & white. 

In her full witch's regalia with Wanda's twin sons pulling on eldritch leashes, Agatha Harkness confronts Wanda, describing her as a dangerous force of chaos magic and names her the Scarlet Witch. 

Which is the first time anyone has used that moniker for Wanda Maximoff within the MCU. 

Meanwhile, Heyward unveils a reaasembled Vision, bleached of all color and also without a soul. 

The shit, as they say, is about to get real. And weird. And real weird. 

Mr. Mayor

Well, that was quick. 

Last Thursday was the end of the first season.

The episode opens with a public affairs program that airs at 4 AM (live for some damn reason) with an opening graphic from the 1970s and an out of date introduction (one of the two co-hosts died in 2003) and last all of 3 minutes and is followed by static. It is a surreal, LOL moment.  

As much as it might be easy to portray  Mayor Neil Bremmer as a buffoon, he displays a keen sense of strategy as he manipulates city business leaders, his lieutenant mayor and his own daughter to address the menace of Los Angeles' palm trees. 

The main draw for Mr. Mayor is Ted Danson's easy charm and comedic timing as Neil.  The supporting cast does nothing for me.  

Mr. Mayor seemed too slight a concoction to think about much but I hope NBC gives it a 2nd season. I think there is potential in this series.

Jeopardy 

Mike Richards is NOT a hottie! 

Ever since the Jeopardy executive producer stepped up to host the show for two weeks, he's been getting a lot of hot buzz on the internet. Including some gushing that he's a hottie. 

No, Mike Richards is NOT a hottie! His head is shaped funny. 

Mike is a perfectly competent host but he strikes too much as a generic "professional game show host person". 

And his head is shaped funny. 

OK, that is that for today's Tuesday TV Touchbase. 

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep down, will ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.  

The Shadow of Donald Trump

By the time this posts, Sunday night at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) will have come and gone.

By the time this posts, Donald Trump will have strutted and fretted his hour upon the stage and said most likely many outrageous things in support of the big lie that he won the election and it was stolen from him as well as a variety of raw red meat for this base to chew on to appeal to their fear mongering and hate mongering ways against evil Democrats and their socialist agenda to destroy America, blah, blah, blah.

As I write this, none of this has occurred.

As I write this, Sunday night at CPAC is but a menacing shadow looming low over the horizon.

My wife Andrea is continually puzzled by why people still support Donald Trump. Her best theory as to why certain alleged political leaders like Ted Cruz and....

Repeat after me:

Ted Cruz is a lying fuck bastard.

Ted Cruz is a lying fuck bastard.

Amen!

Amen!

OK, where was I? Oh yeah.

My wife Andrea is continually puzzled by why people still support Donald Trump. Her best theory as to why certain alleged political leaders like Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham are still so solidly in for Donald Trump is that Li'l Donnie has something on them.

“I will tell you right now, Donald J. Trump ain’t going anywhere,” said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

Blackmail may in fact explains those two Senators.

Does is it explain Ron Rostorfer, Fort Lauderdale , FL? 

“He was the greatest president of our lifetime. I don’t think there’s anyone who can compare to him.”

Does blackmail explain Rene Campbell, Bergen County, NJ?

“The greatest president ever. Hands down ... There’s so much that he did for our country.”

Donald Trump presided over a pandemic that has ultimately cost over half a million lives and a cratering economy.

What, pray tell, has Trump done for this country?

Facts don't matter when perception is king. And the perception of the Trump faithful is one of unmitigated success. And Trumpian success is defined two ways.

1) By what the faithful get out of it. Conservative judges, big tax breaks for the wealthy and any opportunity to screw over a minority.

2) Trump said so.

Trump has primed the well for years now that no media outlet can be trusted and only he will tell them the truth. And Donald Trump always insists he did a great job.

Donald Trump doesn't need to blackmail anyone to be on his side when being on his side gives his breathlessly devoted base of followers and his slavishly sycophantic political support group everything they want by being on his side.

There will be more than enough written to pick apart every hateful, angry and untrue thing Donald Trump will say to his worshipers at CPAC.

All I know is that Trump and his influence will remain a menacing shadow looming low over the horizon for some time to come.