Monday, November 06, 2017

A Cloudy Day On the New Frontier

Started a cloudy morning with more fairy tale spoofs, these from Max & Ruby. "Little Ruby Riding Hood" wants to take her famous no-bake crunch cookies to Grandma. She'll have to avoid the Big Max Wolf if she wants her treats to get there intact. Ruby relates the story of "Max and the Beanstalk" to get her brother to eat his green beans, but he takes the tale in a much different way than she intended. Ruby and Louise want to act out a princess tale, but Max wants his frog to join the fun. Ruby relates the tale of "The Froggy Prince," remembering another frog who was more than he seemed.

Spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon writing. Leia storms into the Horned Toad King's room. He's hiding in bed, with the drapes pulled. Leia opens the drapes and the windows and scolds him for the broken pottery and spilled inkwells that are seem to be the remains of his previous temper tantrums. She's less critical when he finally sits up...and she sees that he's badly bruised and battered under the spikes. An evil magician had tried to hurt him and his sons the night before, but he said he'd take the beatings for all of them.

Leia tends to his wounds and asks him if he still wants to join her in the library. He says he'd love to. He starts to tell her his name, but it sticks in his throat, and he ends up saying his name is Harold. They're about to kiss when Finn and Chewie blunder in, with bandages and breakfast. Finn ignores the blistering looks from Harold and helps Leia with the bandages.

Had my lunch around 1. Watched a Three Stooges short while I ate. They're "Restless Knights" when they discover they're noblemen and offer their services to the queen. The lady's chamberlain wants her out of the way and kidnaps her while the Stooges are wrestling for the court. Now they have to find the queen, or it's their lives on the line!

Did a quick Popeye short while I got ready to go to work. "Ancient Fistory" has Popeye playing Cinderella, with Bluto as his boss who forces him to do the work. Popeye's Fairy Grand-Pappy turns him into a fine prince, so he can attend the ball and woo Princess Olive.

Work was mostly steady, really only crazy during rush hour. I did manage to get outside once, shortly after I finished mopping the bathrooms, but otherwise, I was mostly doing trash, gathering baskets, and attempting to get to the returns. There were three more carts full of loose items. I didn't really get much done with them before I finished for the day.

Had leftovers for dinner when I got in, then tried another recipe from that one-bowl cookie cookbook Lauren sent me for my birthday. Went a little simpler with ginger molasses. Not bad. I think I should have added more molasses. Otherwise, chewy and sweet, and they smelled amazing in the oven.

Did Justice League - The New Frontier in honor of the Justice League movie coming out in about two weeks. This animated film draws somewhat from the real-life difficulties superhero comics had in the conformist and paranoid world of the early-mid 1950's. Communist scares, the McCarthy hearings, and the fallout from the Korean War made most people skittish of anyone who behaves differently than them. Hal Jordan (David Boreanaz) has been bumming around since the end of the war, until his girlfriend Carol Ferris (Brooke Shields) and Special Agent King Farraday (Phil Morris) recruit him and another pilot to find out about a series of messages relayed to Mars. Meanwhile, the real Martian on Earth is J'onn (Miguel Ferrer), who changes his shape in order to adapt to his surroundings and Batman (Jeremy Sisto) is trying to tone down his dark image. Superman (Kyle MacLachlan) and Wonder Woman (Lucy Lawless) react differently to the US goverment's continuing persecution of superheroes. The Flash (Neil Patrick Harris) reacts by retiring.

But there's something big coming...something that wants nothing more than the total destruction of all humanity. It may take a lot more than a few superheroes to stop it...something like a whole league of them...

If you're interested in the history of the Justice League or superhero comics, in the 1950's or the history of the space race, or the graphic novel this was based after, this is actually a very thoughtful and mature story for DC and is well worth looking around for.

Finished the night with Kung Fu Panda 3. Po (Jack Black) isn't sure he's up for the next phase of his journey as the Dragon Warrior - teaching. His attempts to teach his friends the Fearless Five new moves is a disaster. He thinks he might have a way to change things when his real panda father (Bryon Cranston) shows up in town. He wants to take Po to his hidden panda village and teach him everything about being a panda. Po's all for it, but his adopted crane father (James Hong) is jealous and follows them. While Po is in the village, getting to know his fellow pandas, a greedy ox (J.K Simmons) who had once been friends with Master Ubway is stealing all the chi (Force-like magical energy) of all the masters and turning them into green zombies! Po's not sure he's ready to lead his panda army when Tigress (Angelina Jolie) shows up and tells them that the rest of the Five and their whole village has fallen. Now Po has to teach those pandas some new tricks quick, or they'll all end up falling to this nasty side of beef.

I love the Kung Fu Panda series. They're by far my favorite Dreamworks Animation movies. Who knew you could get so much out of a panda who does kung-fu? While I don't like the ox general as much as the previous villain, otherwise, this is just as good as the last film. The relationship between Po and his two very different fathers is especially touching.

If you loved the other movies in this series, this one is just as good, if not better...but you'll absolutely need to see the previous two films before you catch this one in order to understand most of the characters and situations.

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