Tag: observations

Master of None S3 – the title is now accurate

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I saw that Netflix’s Master of None was coming back for a third season, my reaction was like “oh shit, more Master of None,” and a general sense of excitement and anticipation.  I was a fan of the first two seasons and held the show in above average regard, even after the revelation of Aziz Ansari’s unfortunate extracurricular tendencies.  The show had incredible writing, a fantastic wit, and some beautiful cinematography, and by the way the second season ended, I could only imagine just how the show was going to progress in season 3.

So, having watched season 3 now, instead of a feeling of satisfaction, I’m just left scratching my head and feeling conflicted on just how I really feel having watched it.  The writing was still outstanding, and the plot and how the season unfolds definitely has some really heavy-handed scenarios that really elicits some strong emotional reactions, and the cinematography continues to showcase a lot of visually compelling scene shots and landscapes.

But my overall feeling with the season as a whole is that the plot was stretched out over five episodes with maybe one episode’s worth of actual plot.  And instead of even artificially injecting a lot of fluff and filler plot and dialogue, the show burns an inordinate amount of time on random shots of landscapes, nature, or characters doing mundane things.  Seriously, episode 2 has about a two-minute stretch where it’s just Lena Waithe’s character, Denise, sitting in her car eating a hamburger while listening to the radio.  There’s another two-minute sequence in episode four where Naomi Ackie’s character, Alicia, is sitting in a laundromat, looking bored as shit while Latin rap is blasting, and when the scenes changes, I’m scrunching my brow wondering what the whole point of some of these scenes even were.

It doesn’t take long to realize that the season is a far departure from the core story that was established in season 2, and Aziz Ansari himself is hardly in the show he created, having perhaps a total of maybe 15 total minutes on screen combined throughout the five-episode season.  However, that’s more than enough time for them to establish that the plot that unfolded throughout season 2 was flushed completely down the toilet, which has some quite unpleasant implications if you think about it, which as a fan, deflates my general anticipation of knowing what might have happened.

Frankly, when the day is over, this entire season felt like something of a story that Lena Waithe wanted to tell, but in order to most effectively get it off the ground and have it backed by Netflix, was to shoehorn the Master of None name into it, and modify the story to where the characters are ones established in the series.  I feel like the show might have been a little bit more successful if it were not associated to Master of None and were just some heart-tugging mini-series independently named, starring Lena Waithe and Naomi Ackie; but because they called it Master of None, it just leads to kind of this confusing and puzzling season that put way too much focus on cinematography and dragged a 35-minute storyline throughout nearly three hours.

And by doing so, the show’s title becomes accurate, because it was neither a master of storytelling nor was it a master of music or cinematography, and if that was the goal then mission accomplished, I guess?

High praise for Cruella

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m not sure if it’s because I haven’t really watched a feature-length film in a long time, or if it was actually a great movie, but I really enjoyed Disney’s Cruella. 

The film is full of cinematography that is appealing to me as someone who knows squat about what constitutes good cinematography or high fashion, but I know what I like to see.  The soundtrack is an endless array of outstanding tunes from the 1970s, one of the best decades of music as far as I am concerned.  And I like Emma Stone, and I thought she did an outstanding job portraying the rise of Cruella Deville.

Put it all together and it was an entertaining film that I found to be enjoyable on several accounts, and probably something I could watch again if I hypothetically happened to be flipping channels and I came across Cruella on television, regardless to how dated such a metaphor has become this day and age.

The interesting thing about the film as a whole is that by actually giving a deep backstory to Cruella, Disney has canonically created a narrative that is capable of garnering sympathy and empathy for the character, and I think the real interesting thing will be to one day watch 101 Dalmatians, the original animated film, and see how I or anyone else, feels about the character, now that we all know about her upbringing and life in general.

I mean just the groundwork laid down in Cruella, with her interactions with dogs in general already kind of fills in some narrative to why she does the things she wants to do in Dalmatians, and eventually when I watch the original film with my daughters, I’m curious to see how I’ll feel about cartoon Cruella, knowing what I know about her backstory.

Either way, I thought the film was pretty outstanding.  From a visual standpoint, soundtrack, to the performances of the actors themselves, I was into the film, and it was paced well and easy to not get bored during the whole thing.  Plus the guy who plays Nandor from What We Do in the Shadows is in it, and once I realized who he was, it was impossible to not laugh whenever I saw him screen.

Not entirely sure what’s worse

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

White people during the pandemic, or white people amidst the “end” of the pandemic?

Serious question.  Because at least during the pandemic, when you saw white people* running around maskless, it was pretty clear where they stood – deniers, racists, idiots, or all of the above, and it was nice to have a defined line to know when to stay the fuck away from people.

*or anyone for that matter, it just so happens to be that the vast majority of anti-maskers in America just so happen to be white

But now that a whopping like 23%** of the country has been vaccinated, all across America white people* have been whipping off their masks and running around maskless and arrogant and thinking they’re invulnerable as if it were 2019 all over again.  Suddenly, the clear distinctions between unvaccinated idiots and the vaccinated are completely gone, and especially considering at the time I’m writing this, those under the age of 12 are still ineligible for vaccination, that terrifies the ever-living shit out of me knowing that people are all over the place unknowingly potentially spreading coronavirus everywhere.

**not willing to try to find an accurate number

I ran some errands the other day; a trip to the inside of a bank, followed by a trip to the grocery store.  Sure, they’re two incidents that has formulated this entire overarching statement, but what the fuck ever; the conclusion on from such a brief outing was sufficient enough for me to determine that white people simply cannot wear masks.  A cursory Google search when I got back to my computer reveals a gabillion hits, with among them studies like this that all but confirm the assumption.

At the bank, there mercifully were not a lot of people inside when I went, but two white males and one white female were the only people there without masks on.  Everyone else there, who were minorities of various ethnicities were wearing masks.

When I went to the grocery store next, ironically the only white people I saw that were actually wearing masks were an elderly couple; color me surprised.  But literally every single other white person in the store, and even a surprising amount of store employees, the white ones naturally, were now sans-masks.  This isn’t to say that I didn’t see a few people of color not wearing masks, but it goes without question that the overwhelming majority of no-maskers now are unmistakably white.

I mean already, not a day goes by where I don’t opine my disgust and disappointment in America, but this gradual increasing of people arrogantly throwing their masks away most certainly doesn’t help changing my opinions.  Coronavirus is most definitely not gone, and as I’ve stated before, I have no intention of going maskless in public until like 2024, and if white people don’t get their fucking arrogance in check, it might end up stretching out until 2026 at this rate.

One, I have a child and soon children, under 12 years of age, and I’m sure the vaccination age will continue to drop as time passes, but I’m still not willing to put myself in harm’s way which would put them in harm’s way by running around maskless just because it’s occasionally uncomfortable, my glasses fog up, I don’t like the smell of my own breath or the occasional break out.  I mean seriously, if those are the inconveniences I have to put up with in order to help keep the human fucking race safer, then my god, burn all these fucking masks.

But two, being Asian, in a country where anti-Asian sentiment is bubbling up, it doesn’t seem like a good idea for me to run around without a mask and potentially feed some over-armed Georgia redneck that I’m a Chinese carrier here to spread coronavirus or anything.  I haven’t personally experienced overt blatant racism in a while, but I don’t want to reset that clock any time soon unless it came by some Fortune 100 company whom I could then sue and get Oprahrich but that’ll probably never happen.

Getting back to the original query though, frankly, I think things are worse right now, with white people arrogantly ditching their masks, regardless of their state of vaccination.  Because it’s allowing the anti-vaxxing morons to blend in in plain sight among those that are vaccinated, because the vaxxed that have been vaccinated are simply too selfish and unconcerned about their fellow man, were too inconvenienced to continue to wear masks, that they’ve basically become just like their anti-vaxxed brethren.

Cen-owned

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

lol’d – John Cena calls Taiwan a country, gets massive backlash from China, apologizes, then gets heat from the industry that made him

I don’t really have an opinion on the whole is Taiwan a country thing, and frankly I don’t really want to.  I have no horse in this race, and I have friends and acquaintances that are both Chinese and Taiwanese, and it’s really none of my business to what my opinion might be.

But what prompted this post is that throughout his wrestling career, John Cena has been something of this stoic, unflappable icon, that in spite of the internet’s general disdain for him, has been somewhat of a maestro at navigating through time, shifts in fandom and I have a tremendous amount of respect for everything that he’s accomplished.  Scuttlebutt may disagree, but I feel that he’s aged extremely well and has gracefully transitioned from wrestling into movies almost as well as the Rock did.

It’s safe to say that John Cena has kind of transcended into something of a brand throughout the years, based on how methodical and clinical he’s conducted himself throughout his wrestling careers and his transition into Hollywood.  Look no further than his time on Total Divas to realize that nobody was a bigger diva than John Cena; he’s such a company of a man that he basically has the equivalent of a pre-nup for a live-in girlfriend.

So in the whole adage of as much as people love heroes, they love see heroes fail, it’s noteworthy and hilarious to me, that of all the things in world that could possibly trip up a machine like John Cena, it would be a subjective opinion on China that would land him in global, public hot water.

Honestly, regardless of the cringey, pandering and embarrassing apology to all Chinese people, a Fruedian slip-like blurting out of a statement like calling Taiwan a country is clearly what he believes, and there’s nothing wrong with that – it’s an opinion, and we’re all entitled to them, no matter how much criticism they’re subject to.

Frankly, I’m more disappointed in Cena’s response to the whole Chinese backlash, because contrary to the hustle-loyalty-respect brand he built himself on throughout wrestling, he kowtowed and crumpled like a burning piece of paper when it came to upsetting an entire country and very obviously at the behest of a Hollywood studio, he tucked his tail between his muscular legs and made a pretty immediate apology.

He, and the studio could’ve sent a powerful message to the world by digging in and standing their ground, but because the Chinese economy is basically the strongest in the world, they couldn’t possibly risk upsetting them and their coffers, so they showed their hand at what they prioritized above all hustle, loyalty or respect.

In the end, John Cena has basically jobbed three times in a row, which is probably a new record and something he didn’t even do, even in the post-Ruthless Aggression era.  He jobbed to China by looking like a bitch kowtowing to them, which makes him job to the wrestling industry that made him, because his peers now reportedly have heat with him for being a bitch, and of course, he’s jobbed to himself, because this course of action is most definitely something that the John Cena brand really wouldn’t be doing, if not for the tainted influence of Hollywood money.

Isn’t it obvious what makes Invincible invincible?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last two weeks or so, my daily routine has gotten to the point where I can afford to watch a little television every night, and chip away at the queue of shows and programs that I’ve wanted to watch over the last year.  Obviously, this will come back to a screeching halt once #2 comes into the picture, but for the time being, I’m trying to enjoy the feeling of a little bit of expendable downtime again, and soaking in all the stories that I’m hearing good about, and getting to experience them myself.

Among the things recently watched would be Amazon’s Invincible; I’m so long out of comics, I had no idea what this property even was, but from what I can tell it’s by Robert Kirkman, the guy who made The Walking Dead, and it seems to be something of a lampooning of lots of popular superhero comic stories, while having its own cohesive storyline.

As a whole, I found season 1 to be pretty enjoyable.  It’s fairly obvious what properties are being emulated in some characters, and there’s something about the general goriness of the series that kind of takes the veil of the sidelines off of traditional superhero stories, because obviously there is such a thing as collateral damage, and whenever any invasion or attack occurs, there are going to be people negatively affected.

But a comprehensive review isn’t the point of this whole post; it’s the answer to the question in the headline of this post, because I think it’s pretty obvious where Invincible’s overall superhuman aspects originate from, and it’s most definitely not because he’s a half-Viltrumite.

Like I said, I went into this as blind as Ray Charles’s long-decomposed remains, so I had no idea that Mark Grayson’s mom was Korean, therefore making Invincible half-Korean in addition to being a Viltrumite.  That said, it becomes clearer than crystal to why Invincible is basically invincible, warranting being a mega super hero worthy of his own comic and television series. 

Frankly, the only thing that gives it away is this little piece of framed artwork in the background of the Grayson’s household.  And then I notice the way Debbie Grayson is drawn, and then the black hair on mother and son makes some sense.  Also, the fact that both characters are voiced by Stephen Yeun and Sandra Oh, actual Koreans, and the animation credits are basically a rollcall of a Shinsaegae employee roster, and it all makes perfect sense to just how inherently of a Korean operation this whole thing is.

Either way, Korean or not, I enjoyed Invincible.  The fact that it’s so very Korean in the roots only makes it that much more enjoyable for me, and I look forward to seeing how the story unfolds in future seasons.

God bless China

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s no secret in the world that nepotism runs rampant in the world, and it’s bad enough when you’re in out in said world and people are always trying to use the phrase “it’s who you know..” when referring to the perceived advantages some people get over others, regardless of their merit, qualifications or deservedness, and it’s even worse when you find out that there are people in positions of note, that just so happen to be related to people in even higher positions in the world.

But as obvious as nepotism is in the world, at least in places like America, as third-world of a place we are here, people still try to pretend like nepotism isn’t an issue.  The relatives of those in a place of power at least try to bring some degree of experience, or potential sense of belonging when they try to capitalize on their familial connections.

Well that kind of shit doesn’t fly as much overseas, especially in a place like China, with this particular example being dead eye obvious to the concept of nepotism: a wealthy businessman purchases some semi-pro/minor league soccer club, and then demands that the coach plays his son… his 126 kg son (278 lbs.).

I mean the picture above says everything that needs to be said about this whole situation.  Yes, the boy is quite rotund and looks like he should have no business being on a soccer field, but what if he was really just the living embodiment of a troll customized character from an EA Sports game where they were made deliberately fat but had a 99 rating in every attribute?

The son’s personal highlights from the game he was in finishes the painting of the picture to those whom might think that he was potentially a lion in elephant’s clothing, and the best part was the ending to the clip.

The point is, god bless China, because it’s one of the cultures out there with the technological means to broadcast their examples of their archaic, sexist preferential treatment of little prince first sons, even if it means putting them into scenarios where they have to know the rest of the world is going to laugh at if they ever catch wind of it.

Let’s talk about Love Death + Robots S2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was excited when I saw that Love Death + Robots season 2 had a formal drop date.  I enjoyed the first season tremendously, even if there was a lot of controversy around the perceived subject matter of two specific episodes, and regardless of what a bunch of SJWs on the internet felt, I still loved the first season, as it was an enjoyable, fast-paced anthology of short and sweet stories that paraded a myriad of animation styles, which touched all spectrums of the heart and mind, and was over in the blink of an eye because every episode ranged between 7-15 minutes.  So when I saw that more LD+R was on the way, I was quite pleased, and made sure to earmark some of my limited daily time to indulge.

At just eight episodes, S2 was over in the blink of an eye as well, if not shorter, and I watched all eight episodes in two short sittings, although I could easily have done so in just one if I timed it correctly.

I will say, I think that the polarizing reception of the first season probably had some influence on the second, or maybe it’s because it was a shorter season, but I felt like S2 didn’t have quite the bite that the first season did.  I’m not saying I require gratuitous violence or violence towards women specifically, but I felt that there was a little bit of edge lacking in this second season of the show.  The subjects of the episodes were more abstract and broad, and in most cases, did not seem to contain all three of the requisite love, death or robots, not that such was ever an established rule to begin with, but seemed to be better adhered to in the first anthology.

This isn’t to say that I didn’t like S2 at all, but after I had finished all eight episodes, there wasn’t one in particular that I was enamored with and could gush to anyone who wanted to talk about LD+R that it was my favorite.  But for all intents and purposes, this is how I’d rank the episodes (in parenthesis, according to Netflix’s order)

  1. Pop Squad (#3)
  2. The Tall Grass (#5)
  3. All Through the House (#6)
  4. The Drowned Giant (#8)
  5. Automated Customer Service (#1)
  6. Ice (#2)
  7. Snow in the Desert (#4)
  8. Life Hutch (#7)

Really though, it would be my top three, and then the rest were just kind of there, interchangeable in rank depending on the mood I were in, which is to say that they were all kind of okay, and not particularly close to standing out above the others.

I would however, like to talk about Pop Squad; the reason I would say it was the best episode of the season was not necessarily because I liked it the most.  In fact, the theme of the episode is completely horrific and I kind of hate it, but it was one of the episodes of the season that invoked all three love, death and robots, and frankly evoked the most emotional response out of me, which whether I liked it or not, makes it successful all the same. 

**Spoilers ahead, that being said**

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