Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post: The Wild Robot

So last weekend, Andrea and I took our leave from the Fortress of Ineptitude to go see the new animated film from Dreamworks, The Wild Robot.

 

So did a lot of other people as it came in #1 at the box office, a considerable feat for an animated film that is not a sequel or based on another film or television franchise. 

 

The Wild Robot is based on a children’s book of the same name but I had never heard of it before.

 

In the not too distant future, robots are used to help humans with a variety of tasks. ROZZOM Unit 7134 aka Roz is a robot being delivered to a human customer that gets waylaid by a typhoon and winds up crashing on an island wilderness occupied by a wide range of critters. 

Roz just wants someone to tell her what task she needs to complete but she doesn’t speak “critter”.

 

So she learns how.

 

And learns the animals on this island want nothing to do with what they see is a monster invader.   

She did accidentally crush a goose and her nest of eggs so that's not helping her rep.

Even though she takes it upon herself to protect the one egg that survived.  And the baby gosling (Brightbill) that hatches from the eggs and fixes on Roz as his mother.  

Now Roz has a new 3 part task:

• feed the bird
• teach the bird to swim
• teach the bird to fly. 

Thankfully she has an "expert" on geese to help her, a fox named Fink.  Fink sees Roz as an easy mark to con her into protecting him from predators and stuff.  Of course, over time, he will realize Roz is his friend, perhaps his only friend.   

The other geese on the island ostracize Brightbill who is smaller in size and hangs out with the monster that killed his real goose family.  Fink explains to Roz that Brightbill was the runt of his litter and if Roz had not smashed into this goose mom's nest, he likely would have died anyway.   

So there is a lot of this heartwarming drama as a robot learns to improvise and even learns to love.

OK, that sounds sappy and cliched but this movie is better than that. It is very well written with great voice acting. 

And the animation in this movie is gorgeous with the lush island wilderness and the wear and tear on Roz's robotic metal shell.   

Roz's journey as she raises Brightbill and protects the forest creatures is sweet, funny and sad and no, I'm not crying, you're crying, oh just shut up.   

I don't want to oversell The Wild Robot but is at the very least a very good movie. 

Your Friday Video Link: Jackson Hole, WY

So what's going on in Jackson Hole, WY?

Here's Your Friday Video Link to find out.

This live Link on You Tube eats up so much of my time.

All Hail the Arch!  

Trump Lies and Vance Acts Normal and I'm Still Worried

On Monday, Donald Trump went down to Georgia 'cause he's looking for some souls to steal. 

(Dave-El, please do NOT compare me to Donald Trump again.  The Devil.)  

He was stomping around Valdosta which was hit hard by Hurricane Helene and people had their hands full trying to clean up from that  but Li'l Donnie could care less about that. He was all "Wah! Wah! Wah! Pay attention to ME!" and determined to show he cares about hurricane victims and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris don't. 

Li'l Donnie claimed that Georgia's Gov. Kemp could not get President Biden on the phone because Joe was sleeping. 

Meanwhile, Kemp made a statement to the press that yes, he had indeed spoken with Biden whose first words to Kemp was "What do you need?" Kemp assured Biden that FEMA and other federal government resources were on the ground and getting the job done. Biden reiterated that if there was anything else the U.S. government can do, Kemp could call Biden directly. 

Also Trump accused Biden and North Carolina's Gov. Cooper of colluding to keep federal aid resources out of counties that favor Donald Trump.  

OK, Helene hit North Carolina's mountains on Friday and the resulting flooding impacted the area over the weekend as whole towns were swept away. Cooper and Biden had already signed off on orders to provide emergency assistance in advance of the storm but if that aid was slow to get to people by Monday, well, those floods also washed out bridges and roads making it hard to get to those western mountain counties.  

(Which voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 and he's polling ahead there now.)  

One resident in Asheville who finally got a charged up phone and a signal posted to TikTok that yes, both government and private agencies were moving in to provide much needed assistance but it's still early and it's slow going because of all the flooding.

 

In a time of crisis where over a 160 people are dead with the likelihood the death count will keep rising, all Trump can do is spread lies and sew descent.  

God damn it to hell and back, this useless motherfucker must NOT be allowed back in the White House. 

Working on trying to get him back there is his vice presidential running mate. 

On the subject of the J D Vance/Tim Walz debate, well…

 

That could’ve gone better.  

 

In advance of the debate, Walz admitted to being nervous and God bless ‘im, it showed. 

 

We had instances of Walz staring wide eyed as if asking “Who am I? What am I doing here?” that echoed the look on Joe Biden’s face at his last debate and God knows we do not need reminding of that.

 

Meanwhile, Vance was…  normal? 

 

Look, we knew going in that Vance was not going to be the easy target his boss was but still, where was the weird dude who doesn’t know how to order donuts? 

 

In terms of style over substance, I’ve got to give this to Vance over Walz.

 

In terms of substance…

 

Well, Vance was lying his ass off!

 

Did you know Donald Trump actually was responsible for saving the Affordable Care Act? 

 

Wha…….?

 

Look, JD, failing to kill Obamacare is not the same as saving it. 

Walz did land one solid blow near the end when he asked Vance point blank "Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?" and Vance would NOT admit that.  

He tried to turn the topic to some damn thing involving Kamala Harris censoring conservatives during the pandemic and I'm not sure what that was about.  At one point in the debate, Vance argued that misinformation is protected by the first amendment.  

So according to Vance, I can repeat that "J D Vance had sex with a sofa" and nothing bad will happen to me?   

Hey, everybody! J D Vance once fucked a sofa! 

Anyway...

Tim Walz made a salient point that the rights of women should not be determined by their geography. An American female citizen in say Texas should not have fewer rights than one in say Ohio.   

Vance's response to party's role in curtailing abortion access is to say the Republican party hasn't done a good enough job communicating how they here to support family values etc etc etc.  

While Walz made some good points, they were mostly lost to Vance's glib and polished persona and undone by Walz stammering over his responses and missing clear opportunities to strike back at Vance's falsehoods.

Is anyone going to stand up to Donald or JD and say "Kamala Harris was never the Border Czar and you need to stop lying about that!"  

Tim Walz was, to be blunt, disappointing but I think he did no irreparable harm to Kamala Harris. It may help he seemed more genuine than Vance's practiced prattle.   

One frequent attack Vance made on Harris' plans if she becomes President is that she was Vice-President for 4 years. Why didn't she do any of these things during that time? 

As if Vice Presidents have that kind of power or autonomy.  

Despite an assertion before the debate the CBS moderators would not be doing any fact checking and that would be up to Vance and Walz to check each other, one of the moderators did state that the Haitians do have legal status to be in Springfield OH.

Vance then said "I thought there was not going to be any fact checking?"  

While Vance's polished performance may have added a thin veneer of respectability to the Trump/Vance ticket, I don't see it moving the needle towards Trump.

Not when Trump is still flailing away and raging like a petulant man child.

And it didn't help that Jack Smith was back, baby, with a fresh go around at Trump's illegal activities surrounding January 6th. 

But as I wrote yesterday, I'm still scared this useless motherfucker will be allowed back in the White House.  

"That Same Fucking Broken Road"

Last night was the Vice Presidential debate between Tim Walz who came up with the idea of calling Republicans "weird" and J D Vance who took that up as a challenge.  

I'm sure I will have thoughts about all that but I am actually writing this post before Tuesday night.  

Meanwhile, how do I feel about things right now?

I'll be blunt: I'm scared! 

For every poll that I see that has Kamala Harris ahead, there is another poll that says Donald Trump is ahead and what the hell, WHY? 

Is NO ONE paying attention to just how mind numbingly stupid Donald Trump is? 

The following video illuminates just how fucking stupid this choice is.  

This video is a variant on an observation made by a comedian about being on an airline flight, the flight attendant offers you a choice of chicken or a pile of shit with glass in it and you ask how was the chicken was prepared?   

Why is this even a decision at all.  Check out this video from the Lincoln Project in what might be the best pro Kamala Harris ad out there.

Narrated by the ultimate Hollywood movie tough guy Sam Elliot, it is a political ad that does to ask the question, "Are we really going down that same fucking broken road?"  

 

Are we really going to go down this fucking broken road AGAIN? 

Big tough guy Sam Elliot is incredulous this should even be a thing!

Not so tough guy Dave-El is also incredulous this should even be a thing!! 

On one side there is a person who you may not agree with but she is intelligent and empathetic.  

On the other side is this morally deficient, intellectually limited, sexual assaulting, empathy deprived, incoherent convicted felon in the middle of this god damn Venn diagram! 

Surgeon or circus clown?

Chicken or pile of shit? 

Why is this even a choice?

But it is a choice and there too many mother fuckers out there who do want to go down this fucking broken road AGAIN!

And I am still scared!

We just can't go through this again! 

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Snowpiercer and The Umbrella Academy

Welcome to this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase which also coincides with the first day of October. Which means I'm prepared to stop judging people who have had their Halloween decorations up since September 1st.  

And in the spirit of the Halloween season, let's have a word from today's sponsor. 

If you work in a Spirit Halloween, well I apologize... I think.

On to the touchbase! '

We've reached the end of the road for Snowpiercer as it's 4th and final season has reached it's end and as usual the status quo be damned.  

The Earth is still a frozen wasteland except for that one little pocket called "New Eden".  But the Snowpiercer gang is reunited with the Big Alice contingent ready to forge a life together in New Eden however long it may last. 

Melanie Cavill (Jennifer Connelly) and her daughter Alex are unsure how long the thermal pocket that sustains New Eden will last. But everyone will live and work together to sustain life there for as long as they can. 

Watching everyone assembled for a party in the New Eden Town Hall, Melanie tells Andre Layton (Daveed Diggs), "This is how it should've been from the beginning."  

Oh, spoiler! Andre survives. I was really worried the show's writers and producers might decide he would have to die. Nope, he survives to the end of the series.

Before we get there, we have to deal with an over arching plot by mad scientist Nima to restore the Earth to normal. Nima is the frickin' genius who froze the Earth in the first damn place to stop global warming.  And Melanie and Alex are convinced he has his numbers wrong again with his new plan to seed the upper atmosphere with a chemical that will reverse the big freeze.  

The data suggests Nima's plan will strip away the planet's atmosphere. Nima's rocket gets launched but not before Alex removes a crucial bolt that causes the rocket to crash before it can deliver it's dangerous payload. 

While there are some deaths of some main characters over the course of the final season, the finale itself leaves most of our cast still alive, still struggling for survival on a frozen Earth. 

And with some degree of hope, a hope exemplified in the final shot, a patch of flowers far away from New Eden breaking through the ice.  

We get a few moments with individual characters to make sure they're OK (Till and Audrey are back together and Audrey takes the mike for one last song). 

Kudos to AMC for saving Snowpiercer from the Warner Bros. Discovery Tax Write Off Rubbish Heap and giving us a chance to say our goodbyes to Andre, Josie, Ruth, Javi, Melanie, Alex and the whole gang.  

I think more or less, Snowpiercer sticks the landing for it's final bow.   

Can I say the same for the series finale of The Umbrella Academy?  

I'm not sure I can.  

I'm gonna be coy on the deets surrounding the final adventures of the Umbrella Academy family since my son Dean has not caught up to season 4. 

I will say that the Umbrellas cannot seem to stop an apocalypse without paying some deeply personal price. 

The price they pay to stop the latest apocalypse in season 4 seems to be pretty much on brand.  

But it also seems like a big screw you to everyone who has followed this nonsense over the course of 4 seasons.  

Overall, I do NOT feel that The Umbrella Academy successfully sticks the landing for it's series finale.

And that is that for this week's touchbase.

We go from the end of things to the beginnings of things.

Next week's Touchbase, we've got... 

• High Potential
• Brilliant Minds 
• The Penguin
• Agatha All Along

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