I don't have time to be blogging because now that I'm past my (second) kidney stone recovery I should be cleaning the disaster area that's my house... but I just can't shake the bullets for some reason... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Not Todd! Kidney stones wasn't the only pain that I got hit with this week. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the idiotic fucks at CBS canceled one of the best shows on television, So Help Me Todd. The reason that this is not surprising is that CBS routinely preempts the show, dropping it from the schedule for weeks at a time. How the fuck can even a great show build momentum when it's not available? How can people run across it when it's not consistently occupying a time slot? CBS purposely sabotaged the show, then canceled it. Period. And it's a real shame, because it's on-track to be even better than the first season...

It's like the network is being run by dipshit assholes using 1980's tactics instead of living in the 2020's where streaming exists. Networks who know what the fuck they're doing either dump all episodes at once for binging... or release them consistently because they know that people will expect a new episode every week (even if they are not tuning in on the actual premiere date). Did Apple preempt Ted Lasso? Fuck no. The people in charge of AppleTV+ actually understand how consistency and momentum are critical to a show's success. Fuck CBS. It pisses me off that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is on Paramount+ (CBS's overseers) so I have to give these stupid fucks money to watch it. Good thing that's about the only show on this fucking network that I find worth watching. Especially since Star Trek: Lower Decks has also been canceled.

   
• STORYTIME: The Cloud Under the Sea. It's a bit of a long read. But it's a really good one. It's about the people who repair the massive number of cables under our oceans and waters which make the internet happen. Seriously worth your time. Exceptional reporting by The Verge. It must be, because I don't recommend articles like this very often.

   
• Bunnies! Instagram has really sucked me in these past couple days. How, you might ask? Bunnies. In particular, bunnies eating stuff. Just look at this. LOOK AT THIS...

And, dude. Dude!

I can't. I CANNOT!

The algorithm is getting scary good at capturing people's attention. Yikes.

   
• FEMALES?! Marvel Studios announced that Julia Garner will be playing The Silver Surfer in the new Fantastic Four film. Of course there were people who lost their damn minds. BUT SHE'S A FEMALE!!! AND SILVER SURFER IS A MALE!!! And it's like... mostly, yeah. But it's not like there isn't a precedent for a Silver Surfer who's a woman. But the outrage farm over it is by people who likely don't follow the comics in the first place. They just hear "GENDER-SWAP!" being batted around, and that's all that matters...

The only thing I care about... ALL I care about... is that it's a good film. And honors the source material in a way that doesn't have to be literal, but should be respectful to what made the franchise such a success after 60+ years. Live-action is a completely different media than the printed page. There will have to be changes to make it work. The Silver Surfer not being a man isn't going to radically ruin anything. Maybe it made for a more compelling character with the story they want to tell? Or maybe Julia Garner was just the best actor for the role? I dunno. I won't know until the film is released. Nobody will.

   
• There You Go! It's like... I am already dying to see Deadpool & Wolverine so much that it seems impossible that I could be any more excited about it. But then...

Genius. It's like... whomever is in marketing at Marvel Studios managed to capture everything we've been waiting for. And it's so simple in execution.

   
• NEWSFLASH: Cable lobby vows “years of litigation” to avoid bans on blocking and throttling. My raw, seething loathing of former FCC chair Ajit Pai for his total fucking betrayal of The American People really knows no limits. This week the FCC is going to vote on whether to restore the vital net neutrality rules that Pai repealed (despite them having massive public support BECAUSE THEY'RE THE RIGHT THING TO DO!). And I'm here to tell you... they better fucking reinstate them. Because I am sick and tired of Big Telco and Big Cable and their fucking need to fuck over the internet with their fucking bullshit for a fucking buck. And I literally could not give less of a shit about their threats. Fuck them. Let them "vow" all they want. Here's a one-minute video from six years ago just to show that we are still fighting the same shit because corporations fucking own our fucking government...

Fuck Ajit fucking Pai forever. When I think of people who should be fucking shot for fucking treason, his name is near the fucking top of my fucking list. To this day I wonder what he got in exchange for selling us out.

   
And now back to everything in my house I've been needing to clean for the past two weeks.

After fucking up just about every single Marvel film they've ever made, 20th Century Fox finally got it right when they unleashed Deadpool on an undeserving world back in 2016. It was shockingly good and easily slid into my third favorite film slot of the year.

Needless to say, my expectations were rather high for the sequel. My fear was that they would just take Ryan Reynolds off the leash, substitute jokes for story, go full-on stupid, and destroy everything that made the first film work so well.

Instead they did the exact opposite of that and I think I might actually like it better than the original...

First of all, Deadpool is just as ruthlessly violent and hilariously funny as ever. This is the role Ryan Reynolds was born to play and he completely owns it in every possible way. But like the poster says, he doesn't come alone. Cable and Domino are with him, and Josh Brolin and Zazie Beetz are everything you could possibly hope for. Domino was particularly surprising, possessing a joy that lights up the screen. She comes dangerously close to stealing the entire show and an argument could be made that her scenes are the best in the film. Zazie could easily carry a solo film, and I hope somebody is seriously investigating it.

If there's a fault(?) in Deadpool 2 it's that the film is so dense with story and jokes that it demands repeat viewings to get it all. It was my intent to see it a second time in the theater but I didn't make it back to the multiplex in time. Now that it's been released on home video I can watch it as many times as I want.

And I will watch it a lot, I'm sure.

Continuing on with my revisiting of every Marvel Studios movie...

MARVEL STUDIOS MOVIE OF THE DAY, No. 5: The Avengers
Original Grade: A+ • Today's Grade: A+
And here is what we've been leading up to these past four movies. And it did not disappoint. The trick in team-up films like this is always going to be balancing screen time between multiple characters and balancing the power levels of everybody involved so heavy hitters like Thor don't obliterate weaker characters like Hawkeye. Joss Whedon did a superb job of that... and managed to make a witty, fun, and entertaining movie to boot. As if that wasn't achievement enough? The Battle of New York was eye-candy on a level yet unseen. But the best part? The groundwork has just been laid for the next 15 films.
   
MOMENT TO BEAT: Hulk smashing Loki.
   
COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER: The first ten minutes of the film are spent not with The Avengers but with SHIELD. And while I understand the need to set things up with Loki and The Tesseract, it seems a lot of time (relatively) to invest. I would rather have had half of that cinematic indulgence used elsewhere because a lot of time was spent with SHIELD as it is. There's also the matter of timing, where Captain America and Black Widow can get from New York to Germany in minutes. Other than that, I really hate what they did with Cap's uniform. The helmet is goofy-looking and the nonsensical metallic shoulder cuffs look stupid. And speaking of questionable design, whose idea was it to put the Subway sandwich logo on Stark Tower's helipad? But the thing that bothers me most is how nuking the alien mother ship somehow causes every last Chitauri warrior, transport, and ship to suddenly keel over dead. Talk about lazy writing.
   
SIDENOTE: In the tradition of comic books since the dawn of time, super-heroes end up fighting when they first meet. And the battle between Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor is a good one.