Adam's Blog

Well, f*ck me! I actually almost forgot to do this piece that I promised I would do. Granted, I had to go back work to this weekend and had very little time or energy to get this up sooner but it’s also because Morbius is such an incredibly nothing burger of a movie that I’m slowly starting to forget just about nearly every single thing that happened in the movie. However, there is one part of the movie that hasn’t left my mind yet. Of course, it’s the part that’s not even technically part of the movie but after the credits began to roll, the mid credit scenes.

Also, I was beginning to not want to bother writing this piece because it would lean into the big problem of me trying to dodge spoilers with a movie that has hardly anything to spoil and treating the post credit scenes as something vital to the movie/future of this so-called Sony Spider-Man Universe when it most likely will not in the long run. Then it began to dawn on me about how this is the exact kind of post credit scenes that are wrong with universe movies like this. Not just because it’s bad, dumb, doesn’t make a lick of sense, and feels like a complete portal for the character that this certain actor has played. More because it highlights just what most franchises completely miss the point off when it comes to an installment containing set ups, easter eggs, universe connections, and post credit scenes that might lead to something important later on down the road. Making you actually think you need to suffer through a bad movie and a bad post credit scene in the hopes that it perhaps will lead to something good in the future when you actually should not.

Let’s first go over the mid credit scenes. This is your one and only warning about spoilers for Morbius and even Spider-Man: No Way Home. If some odd, strange reason, you don’t want to be spoiled by the only logical thing that could constitute as a spoiler for Mobius, then click away and go watch the movie first, which I hope you don’t actually have to pay with your own money to watch.

Anyways, the first mid credit scene takes place at the exact time as the end for No Way Home where Doctor Strange helps Peter cast the spell that would make everyone forget he is Peter Parker and would send all of the villains from the other Spider-Man movies back to their own respected universes that they came from. However, Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes/Vulture, who is still in prison from his actions in Homecoming, gets transported from the MCU universe which he was established in and to the same universe as Morbius and (I guess) Venom are a part off. The second mid credits shows Toomes meeting up with Michael Morbius himself. He tells Morbius that he’s not from this universe and believes that Spider-Man is a big reason as to why he got teleported. It’s then that Toomes proposes that him and Morbius start a team as he believed the two can do some “good” in the world. Morbius is intrigued and the two began to form an alliance that will likely lead to the Sinister Six using whatever Spidey villains they can to one day come up against Spider-Man once Sony can figure out what Spider-Man they can actually use.

Okay, ummmm……………huh, what?

Talk about a confusing head scratcher. Firstly, how is it that Vulture actually is able to teleport onto another universe with the other Spider-Man villains when he is ALREADY apart of that exact universe that the MCU is set in? Shouldn’t he had just forgotten about Peter Parker instead of Spider-Man and that’s the end of that. Secondly, does Morbius even now about Spider-Man? Despite the trailer teasing that there’s an actual Spider-Man at some point in the movie (which is not in the actual movie), there is no evidence that a Spider-Man even exists in this universe. Why would Morbius be intrigued to get revenge on someone he probably doesn’t even know? Thirdly, is there even a Spider-Man in the universe of Morbius and Venom? Venom only found out about Spider-Man after he (somehow) got transported into the MCU but it was never established that there was an actually Spider-Man in it’s own universe. Even though there were rumors before hand about it being possibly connected to Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man, that’s never made clear or confirmed so your guess is abut as good as mind. Lastly, doesn’t it feel like a huge betrayal of the character of Vulture? By the end of the post credit scene of Homecoming, despite Toomes being intimately approached by the so-called Scorpion to reveal him the identity of Spider-Man, he doesn’t bite and keeps Peter’s secret safe. That established that he deep down cares for Peter and doesn’t want revenge. But because, he ends up getting moved to another separate universe and just blindly blames Spider-Man for it (which he has literally no reason to blame him for it even if it’s actually true), he now wants vengeance?! Give me a break!

But yeah, you probably already asked those kinds of questions after watching the mid credit scene itself or read the leaked description of it before the movie came out or even read the interview of the director literally spoiling that bit before anyone actually had a chance to see it. However, the reason why both of these mid credit scenes stink as to do it more than just being bad in it’s own right. This shows how most of Hollywood as an absolute miscalculation as to how superhero movies and cinematic universe movies should be run.

As much as people claimed that Marvel has a constant reliance on connective tissue and multimedia storytelling, when you really get right down to it or even think about it for a moment, it’s mostly has been a fairly self-contained franchise. Sure, every once in a while there’s that “main” movie you must watch and each once always have a universe building piece or two there, but the key trick that Marvel tends to pull with their movies and tv shows is making you think you have to watch every single aspect of it to understand the main central storyline at play here but you actually don’t.

All you have to do is look at the MCU slate last year. You didn’t needed to have watch WandaVision or Loki to be able to understand what went on in Spider-Man: No Way Home despite there being connections tied to the multiverse concept. Florence Pugh’s Yelena who made her MCU debut in Black Widow played a key part in the final few episodes of Hawkeye but you really didn’t have to watch Black Widow to understand that character and her motives. Heck, I’m pretty sure you won’t even have to bother checking that new Marvel animated series, What If? before Multiverse of Madness comes out to be able to get into evil Benedict Cumberbatch and Hayley Atwell as the new Captain America. Just like with to Mysterio himself, it’s all an illusion.

The approach that Marvel takes with their own cinematic universe is to make it’s canon and interconnectivity feel like more of a seasoning than the exact main course. Most of the set-up and universe building always takes a backseat first and the movies themselves always tend to work as their own stand-alone stories with their main characters that gives glimpses at what the future may hold for it’s own characters. It’s not like what Disney are now doing for their Star Wars series where they are treating every single episode of it as one that you must see or else you will probably be lost in whatever the main central storyline that Jon Favreau and company are trying to tell. Good luck being able to keep track what goes on in the third season of The Mandalorian without watching The Book of Boba Fett. Heck, that’s what Marvel Netflix suffered greatly from by trying to forced big tie-ins to it’s boring villains known as The Hand that made it practically required you suffer through Iron Fist to get a clue about what these guys are suppose to be in The Defenders. The MCU solves this problem by making sure to make it’s connectivity and set-up feel more like icing on a cake for the viewer rather than green vegetables you must eat before getting to the good stuff.

Most audiences watch all of these MCU movies and shows because they like what they are watching. They love the universe building, they love the action, they love the drama, they love the conflict that the characters go through, and lastly, they love the characters and their journeys. While it certainly can be rooted at times to what the audience might want to see next, it never comes across as a necessity or feels like homework. It always feel more rewarding than punishing. Marvel allows themselves to take risks with characters that might not be as recognizable or immediately profitable than the likes of Spider-Man and Iron Man but shows how far deep their library is of rich characters who are interesting in their own right who can get the audience invested in them and their role that it will get them anxious to see whatever happens next to them.

The thing that makes Morbius along with the two Venom movies (even if you are someone that likes them) look remotely bad and cynical is Sony openly stating that you have to watch a movie you may end up hating with a burning passion just so you are able to understand what happens in a future movie that you might end up hating a little less. The characters themselves lack interesting or compelling stories and is relying strictly on it’s main actors to be able to provide any sort of depth or intrigue to incredibly flat characters they are given to play. Even if the universe building itself or connections aren’t the main focus on, it always seems like it actually is because of so little else happening in the actual movie. It’s Tom Hardy doing weirdo stuff that was compelling in the Venom movies, not the actual character of Eddie Brock and the symbiote itself. It was Matt Smith having a good time that made him somewhat fun in Morbius, not the actual character he plays. It’s not Morbius itself you were required to see to find out the direction of Sony’s Spidey-verse, it was just the post credit scene of it. That’s what makes it’s ill-fated and flawed foundation stick out badly because there’s so little else to gravitated towards these movies except with seeing some good actors ham it up for an hour and 45 minutes. These movies seem to only exist so that one day they might be connected to a bigger story but the studios aren’t even sure if they will have the revenue to be able to back up their future plans.

That seems to be the one thing that Hollywood is missing the point in all that Marvel has accomplished. In order to build a solid foundation with a shared universe, you have to make it a foundation that people want to actually be a part off. You have to make the characters and the universe you are building likable and interesting in their own rights and have it’s interconnectivity as a guideline but not as a main necessity. Sony (and plenty of other big Hollywood franchises) hasn’t done any of that. By making movies that feel more like obligations or check-off lists than actual films and having post credit scenes that constantly hints at a certain future but it’s unclear if it will actually come, this are examples as to how Hollywood continues to miss the point to the success of it’s main juggernauts and we will constantly see more results like Morbius this in the near future.

Anyone has their own definition of what constitutes as a bad movie. Some says it’s a movie that fails to live up to their own personal expectations for it despite how high or low they were. Others says it’s a movie that basically is unable to meet any sort of standards of what’s required for good filmmaking through their perspective. There’s even some that find entertainment in a bad movie but is still unable to call it good because it didn’t entertain them in a way that the movie itself intended to.

When it comes to superhero/comic book movies (and I’ve certainly talked a LOT about them already), there’s three definitions of what I would consider to be a bad movie. There’s the kind of bad movie that is so bad that it’s completely watchable (ex., Batman and Robin). There’s the kind of bad movie that is so bad that it’s completely unwatchable (ex., Fant4stic). Then you get a movie like Morbius. The one that seems like a very slim version of both of those definitions. One that is so straight down of the middle in it’s badness that doesn’t meet either end of the rope of being watchable bad or unwatchable bad. Morbius is the exact definition of a superhero movie that is uninterestingly bad.

I’m almost kinda want to stop there because I’m not sure what else needs to be said that could at least make for a somewhat interesting review. It’s the kind of movie that I claimed I didn’t want to watch Fantastic Beasts 3 for because I didn’t think I would be able to come up with anything that I didn’t already complain about in the first two movies of that series. However, since I’ve already stated I would review this movie and already got started with this. I will do my best to go more in depth.

No spoilers but then again, I’m not entirely sure what to spoil because so little actually happens in this movie. The only thing to potentially spoil is the laughably terrible post credit scene that even director Daniel Espinosa already spoiled in an interview about a week before the movie even came out worldwide. Still, no big spoilers here.

Morbius is the third movie that takes place in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (I guess that’s what we’re calling it now). The movie sees scientist Michael Morbius (Jared Leto), who has throughout a good portion of his life has looked for a cure to a rare blood disease that he has had forever. With the help of Doctor Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona), he believes he has found a cure in the form of bats but when the experiment goes wrong, he ends up turning himself into a form of a vampire. When his brother, Loxias Crown (Matt Smith) finds out about this same cure, he wants to take it for himself regardless of the consequences that may come of it. Michael warns him not to but Mio takes it anyway. The two then end up causing chaos all over town as the blood thirsty vampires.

The overall plot and structure is about as generic and conventional as it gets for a superhero movie. With the exact same story beats that has been done in plenty of other better superhero movies or even other better films in general, Morbius never once tries to deviate itself among the subgenre it claims to be a part of. Heck, the overall structure of the movie feel so hacked to the bone that I’m not even sure the movie itself has an actual middle act.

Once we get to see Morbius fully form into his vampire self (and this is after seeing a couple of scenes of bats swarming around him with an hilariously bad attempt at trying to mimic Batman Begins), the movie basically goes on autopilot. It’s only after about thirty minutes of the police trying to chase down Morbius after being accused of murder along with the scriptwriters desperately trying to find a way to make Matt Smith’s Milo the main villain of the movie, where we basically get to the film’s third act about over an hour before the movie is suppose to end. Somehow, it manages to be both long and drawn out as well as being completely abrupt and rushed. It’s hard to explain but I don’t even know what was suppose to be the central conflict between Michael and Milo by the tail end of the picture because the movie itself barely took anytime whatsoever to established that. The two have a difference with how they want to present their vampire forms and that’s basically it. However, once their confrontation is resolved, the movie then constitutes of what might be the most rushed ending I’ve seen in a big movie since 2018’s The Predator. Making everything that has come up to this point feel rather pointless. Almost as if the movie was just marketing time until the next movie and when Sony figures out what Spider-Man they are actually allowed to use for their so-called supervillain universe.

Granted, Venom had similar flaws as well but even that was able to be carried by the charismatic and clearly passionate Tom Hardy. It started off as yet another painfully dull origin sandbox but eventually found it’s footing by transporting itself into a buddy cop/bromance comedy that would later carry into the sequel. Morbius never inspires to be at least as watchable or enjoyably bad as Venom. A big part of that has to do with Jared Leto particularly sleep walking through the role and almost looks as if he just wants to be the Joker again. Then again, he also doesn’t have the advantage of actually having another self of himself to banter upon like Hardy’s Venom did or an interesting character to play so he’s not 100% to blame for this.

The main problem here is that there’s no arc or journey that Michael goes through the course of the movie. There’s basically no difference between Michael Morbius as a human being and him as a vampire. It’s hard to be engaged in the eternal conflict that Michael states repeatedly that he feels within himself because we’re not so sure what differs between the two sides of himself or even Milo. It’s never made clear if Michael wants a bigger goal than finding a cure for himself or if he even cares that other see his vampire self as a threat to society. It’s almost like the writers were too afraid to split his personality traits because they don’t want Mobius to accidentally come across as a hero in his own story, something that most recent “villain” origin stories (Maleficent, Suicide Squad, Venom, Cruella, etc.) including this fall into the same trap off. I guess Joker and Brightburn remain the gold standard in that regard of actually having the guts to make their center villains not the heroes of their own stories but the protagonists of it. There’s a difference.

The only time the movie finds any sort of light is when Matt Smith enters the picture. While his character is also terribly uninteresting and underwritten, Smith seems like the only person that is having fun in the movie. He doesn’t quite capture that same level of cheesy, enjoyable over-the-top ness that Hardy brought with the two Venom movies and really only has one scene to himself where he’s able to capture that same lightning in a bottle but he’s definitely fun to watch and makes you wonder why didn’t he play Morbius in the first place. At least then, you might be able to have an actor that has the charisma to be able to carry a picture with hardly any material to work with which could at least give the movie it’s own sort of value that it might perhaps leave a good impression on some folks.

Many of these flaws could at least be somewhat forgivable if there was some effective filmmaking on display but there’s barely anything to write home about here. The editing is choppy as hell and absolutely reeks of obvious reshoots and cuts. The direction is all over the place with it not knowing what character should be the main focus off each individual scene. The lightning is so incredibly dark that even Gareth Edwards would ask for a bit of brightness. The CGI looks like it came from a 2009 Playstation 3 game. The action scenes are poorly shot and nonsensical that it’s hard to feel any sort of stake or investment in them. Also, I’m pretty sure that Warner Bros should look into this movie because I’m pretty sure there are musical tracks ripped straight out of The Dark Knight trilogy.

Morbius is not the worst superhero or even Marvel movie I’ve ever seen. Especially when there exists the likes of Steel, Howard the Duck, Elektra, Catwoman, The Spirit, Fant4stic, and Suicide Squad. Even then, I could at least recommend those movies if you want a crash course on how NOT to make a movie. Morbius is just not bad or interesting enough to be part of that discussion because the movie itself doesn’t think it’s worth the time or effort. I can’t recall the last time that I was so unengaged with what is happening on the big screen and the supposed emotional moments made me go “meh”. It’s on par with the likes of the theater cut of Justice League and The New Mutants as comic book movies that have so little substance and engagement to it that it’s hard to stay anger at it or even bother putting your mind on it just a few days after you’ve seen it because it’s just not worth it. And if that atrociously awful mid credit scenes is anything to go back (and don’t worry, I will write my own piece about that a few days after the movie has been released), there doesn’t seem to have that much of an interesting (or even logical) endgame in mind either to where all of this is suppose to be going or not going.

Save us, Across the Spider-Verse! Save us all!

Other comments:

• I forgot to mention that Tyrese Gibson and Al Madirgal are also in here too as the FBI agents. The fact I forgot to mention them should say something about the bare minimum roles they play in the movie. I sure hope Tyrese was able to earn that paycheck though.

• I’m pretty sure that no one working on this movie has ever had a cat before. Apparently, they think that shaking a kitty’s litter box will get their attention. I’m not even joking about that.

• For a universe of supervillains, none of the supervillains have acted much like supervillains so far.

• What movie did Jared Leto even win an Oscar for again?

• No offense to Naomi Harris but Adria Arjon would have made a good Shriek.

• I’m starting to think about how much better this movie could have been if Leto and Smith swapped roles. Or if Leto just wasn’t cast in the movie at all. Either way, big miss opportunity.

• This was probably the first movie I’ve ever saw in theaters that had full English language throughout which included subtitles. Not sure why, but even then I was mostly able to understand everything that the characters were saying even if I didn’t care about what was going on.

• Happy April Fools Day, indeed Sony!

To paraphrase Han Solo in The Force Awakens, “Albert, we’re home!”

It was just this week that it was announced that Albert Pujols had sign a one-year deal, consisting of at least 2.5 million dollars, to return to the team that he started his MLB career with in the St. Louis Cardinals. This is his first time in a Redbirds uniform since 2011, the last year which the Cardinals won it all. After spending 10+ years in LA playing for the Angels and a half season with Dodgers, he now makes his way back to St. Louis where he plans for this year to be his final season.

While there’s no doubt about it that this is purely a nostalgia move by the Cardinals FO, I do believe there are some big benefits that Albert can provide to the team that in no way, shape, or form can bring any harm towards the team. Yes, Pujols is NO WHERE near the player he once was and how he has been since he left St. Louis over a decade ago is prove of that. However, if used properly, he can be a key factor into making a Cardinals a legit playoff and even possibly World Series contender in 2022. While the Cardinals still have other big holes they didn’t bother to fill in the offseason (mostly from the pitching department), having one of the best players to have ever played the game on in your clubhouse every day should certainly not be one of them.

To prove that, I made up a list of five reasons that I believe Albert Pujols can be a major asset to the Cardinals in 2022.

1.) A Perfect Bench Bat/Pinch Hitter

Aside from their lack of starting pitching and having to rely on young relievers that were clearly not ready for the big leagues, one of the biggest issues with the Cardinals last year was an incredibly weak bench. It did get better down the stretch with the likes of Jose Rondon and Lars Nootbaar (I still can’t believe that’s a real name), but for the most part, it was fairly subpar. Matt Carpenter was a shell of his former clutch self, Austin Dean, Lane Thomas, and Justin Williams didn’t make much impact, Edmundo Sosa was only effective when he was in the starting lineup, and Paul DeJong was plain bad no matter what his role was. A big reason for that awful stretch the Cardinals suffered in June to the All-Star Break which kicked them out of the division race, was a lack of a productive bench or reliable late-bat to count on.

However, if his time with Dodgers last year prove anything is that Albert can still be useful when used properly and can make for the right sparkplug. As a sub, Pujols’s numbers were .305 BA, .364 OBP, .458 SLG, .821 OPS. As a pinch-hitter, Pujols’s numbers were .359 BA, .395 OBP, .513 SLG, .908 OPS.

While he is certainly not someone who can start/play every day anymore, he can certainly make for a good back-up to rely on when the team needs it. Whether it’s when Paul Goldschmidt needs a day off or when the game is on the line and a big lefty-reliever comes up to the mound, Pujols can be someone to count on to get the job done.

And speaking of hitting off of left-handed pitching.

2.) He can still murder left handed pitching.

While there is no doubt that he was helpless against right handed pitching (.180 BA, .233 OBP, .266 SLG, .500 OPS), Pujols was undoubtedly a kryptonite for left handed pitchers in 2021. His splits against LHP include .294 BA, .336 OBP, .603 SLG, .939 OPS. For a hitter that is stated to be 42 years old (or possibly even older than that), that is quite an impressive.

The Cardinals are already a team that is capable of hitting off of left handed pitching with the majority of the hitters in their lineup being able to hit from the right side with only Lars Nootbaar and Corey Dickerson of what will (probably) be the only strictly left handed hitters that will be active on the Opening Day roster. With Pujols being able to act as either a pinch hitter against a lefty relief or as a side DH against a lefty starter, this makes the Cardinals a team you most definitely not want to face when you have a lefty on the mound in any capacity.

3.) Great Leadership

The only thing that make a great player any better is being a great leader. Anyone that has played with Albert over the years can tell you that he brings an absolute great presence and energy into the clubhouse with any team he has been a part of. Mike Trout has always spoke highly of Albert and has always credited him for his turn as arguably the greatest ball player in baseball. Also, plenty of Dodgers players last year has highlighted Pujols has being the right person in the dugout that an lead and inspire others.

With two other Cardinal veterans (Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright) expected to call it a career after this season along with young hitting prospects that are expected to debut this year such as Nolan Gorman, Ivan Herrera, Juan Yepez, Brendan Donovan etc., it’s definitely wise to have a baseball legend be in the clubhouse and being able to help guide these young hitters to show them their first true steps onto the big field.

Even if Albert isn’t able to make his impact with the bat or glove in 2022, there’s no doubt he will be able to set by another example of his fantastic leadership that he will likely bring in the dugout.

4.) Increased Fan Support

Admittedly, this is more of an advantage to the Cardinals FO then Pujols himself but hear me out. As I mention previously, there is nothing without a shred of a doubt that this signing was done to increase ticket sales and merchandise for the 2022 season. Mozeliak and the Dewitts know that fans would give anything to see Albert put on his Redbird jersey one last time and have his final home game be at Busch Stadium. However, if history is anything to go back, the Cardinals tend to perform better when they have the fans right by their side in their home ballpark.

Since they opened the third incarnation of Busch Stadium back in 2006, the Cardinals have only had one losing record season at home (2016). The biggest reason for that is how fans will always show up and support the team they love most in baseball. As a result, that gives the players an extra bid of confidence. It gives the players the sense of feeling that it’s their duty to pay their respects to the fans support by going out there and play the best nine innings of baseball they possibly can.

Since 2006, the Cardinals have had 17 playoff series at Busch, six of those in the League Championship Series, and three in the World Series. They have won 11 of those 17 series, three of them in the LCS, and two of them in the World Series. There’s not a whole lot of teams that benefit from home field advantage than the Cardinals do.

With one of the best Cardinal players of all time, Albert Pujols returning to where his major league career started, no doubt that fan support will be through the roof in 2022.

5.) The Perfect Swan Song

The main reason why fans were so eager to have Albert Pujols for 2022 was how it would make for a rather nice and bittersweet storybook ending for not just the career of Pujols but also Cardinal legends Yadier Molina and Adam Wainright, (or as the fans like to refer to them as Yadi and Waino). Molina and Pujols have both already announced that this year will be his final season. While Wainwright hasn’t 100% confirmed that this will be his final year yet, it’s hard to imagine him wanting to go into a 2023 season without Yadi being behind the plate for him.

This also leaves some important milestones that all three players are hoping to achieve in 2022. Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina are looking to set the new record for most games started with the same pitcher/catcher combo ever. Albert is looking to hit at least 21 home runs to be able to be one of four Major League hitters ever to hit 700 home runs in their entire career. Just imagine the exciting and enthusiasm from Cardinals fans and even baseball fans everywhere if both of those milestones are able to be meet by the end of the year. These won’t be easy to achieve but no doubt, everyone will be along for the ride until the very last game of the year.

There’s no telling of the direction the Cardinals will be headed to next year. They will be faced with a lot of challenges with the departure of several key Cardinal veterans. Veterans who are not only three of the best players to ever put on a Cardinals uniform along with the last three pieces to their two World Championships of the 21st century but also ones that have inspired great connection and leadership to their teammates and the fanbase, both young and old. There’s no telling what kind of players that St. Louis will have for the foreseeable future that will leave anywhere near the amount of impact that these three men did but no doubt, there will be quite an Hollywood ending to write out by the end of the year.

Other comments:

It has just came out a few days ago that Albert Pujols’s wife, Deidre had to have surgery to remove a brain tumor in her head. My absolute thoughts and prayers are with Deidre, Albert, and all of her friends and family! This can not be an easy process whatsoever. I wish nothing but the best things from both of them.

Also, I do have plans to make an MLB Prediction piece for 2022. I should have it out sometime next week before Opening Day. I’m also seeing Mobius tonight and will have my review of that sometime tonight or tomorrow. So, be on the lookout for those.

Have you ever had that one series you really like but only really started to get into once the dust settled on it?! Doesn’t it make you want to go back in time and relieve the high and even low points of the franchise with the others who grew up with it so you can have that exact kind of emotional reactions to each installment at the time they came out?

When it comes to movie franchises, that’s Ghostbusters in a nutshell for me. I really enjoy the original Ghostbusters and understand/respect the influence it had on cinema and movie goers everywhere but I never had much nostalgia for it and didn’t even watch it all the way through until I was a teenager. That could potentially explain why I didn’t have such a vital reaction to the 2016 reboot and felt rather indifferent on the sequel and last year’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife. I did quite enjoy the 2009 video game though.

When it comes to gaming franchises, there hasn’t been one series that fits that description in my first paragraph than with Kingdom Hearts. I remember the big press surrounding it with each new installment that came out from gaming magazines, tv commercials, and demos you could play at Walmart or Target. I remember seeing bits of cutscenes online and my friends/cousins playing through a world or two from the first or second main game. I remember playing through the demo of Dream Drop Distance around the Holidays of 2012 when I got the 3DS XL for Christmas. I even remember watching a steam with live reactions when the official announcement of Kingdom Hearts 3 was confirmed during E3 2013. I was there to see the influence and impact this franchise had on gamers everywhere and their childhoods but I wasn’t never there to experience it with them.

It was then that I decided to take a shot at trying out at a Kingdom Hearts game by getting Kingdom Hearts 3 months after it came out. The reason I waited months after was because I was just waiting for the insane hype for it to die down and be able to form a completely unbiased opinion on it. I get to experience it from someone who didn’t have much attachment to the series and never played any of the games all the way through until then. For the most part, I was just curious about being able to play as Sora through all the Disney worlds, most notably Toy Story, Monsters Inc., and Big Hero 6. Plus, who wouldn’t be excited to hear Elsa sing Let it Go for the fifteen billion time but through the eyes of Sora, Donald, and Goofy?

I will say, on my first playthrough of it, this game frustrated me to no end. I was constantly getting beat up, taken huge amount of damage to enemies, never felt like I was getting better or stronger as the game went on, and found just way too difficult and rage inducing . So much so, that when I was at the final boss fighting Xenahort, it took me like three days to actually beat it. By some miracle, I was able to do it. I completed what was undoubtedly an exhausting and intoxicating experience for me but I could just sit back, relax, watch the final cutscenes, and then I could be done with the game and probably the main series forever.

However, after beating the third game, I decided to go search some reactions to it and see if anybody else shared similar complaints as me. Mostly if they felt that the game was too hard and filled with insane difficulty spikes. As it turns out, I saw the exact opposite opinions. Many people complained that the game was actually too easy, simple, and just held their hand all the way through, even on the hardest mode. That flabbergasted me. Was it not the game’s faults but my own fault for being so blind and inexperienced when it comes to Kingdom Hearts? For the most part, yeah it was. It was then that I learned what the problem was. I just wasn’t playing the game right.

For whatever reason, about over halfway through the game, I forgot to continue to upgrade myself. As of result, once I got to the final battle where I took on Xenahort, I was only leveled up to like six or something. How I was able to go through the whole game and beat him with my level up being that incredibly low I have no idea, but by the skin of my teeth, I did it. I then realized that this was my fault instead of the game’s and wanted to give it another chance.

After realizing that I wasn’t playing the game correctly, I went back and played it again. As of result, I got through the game with ease. Now that I actually knew what I was doing, I was able to enjoy the immensely fun ride that was Kingdom Hearts 3. While the game is certainly not perfect with severe pacing issues, overlong cutscenes, and not much plot momentum until the last third of the game, I no doubt enjoy my time playing the game and get to experience a brand new KH game, even if I couldn’t follow jack s*it of the actual story of the game. Even after playing through the majority of the franchise, while I can’t quite say it’s the best one, this might be my most favorite KH game in terms of gameplay.

Now, after playing through 3, I thought it would be best to go back and relieve the other games of the series. I ended up buying a set of multiple KH games remastered titled Kingdom Hearts: The Story So Far, the box set of the majority of the games that was released prior to the release of 3. It contained each game from the KH HD 1.5 Remix set, KH HD 2.5 Remix Set, along with a new set of it’s own with 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue. The games itself contained the first two main entries, Re:Chain of Memories, Birth by Sleep, 0.2 Birth by Sleep- A Fragmentary Passage, and Dream Drop Distance. It also contain from cutscenes 358/2 Days and Re:Coded but not the actual gameplay of it along with a mini-movie, Union X [Cross]. I play through all of these games throughout last year and what an amazing but exhausting ride it was.

The first KH while a bit clunky, is so fun, great, and was the perfect introduction to the series that I found myself immediately getting sucked into it. The second one, even with it’s admittedly overlong three-hour prologue, is even better and one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played. Birth by Sleep might be a tad more repetitive when it came to gameplay and was getting hard to keep track of the amount of characters in this universe, but still had an engaging story and characters that it made it worthwhile. 0.2 Birth by Sleep- A Fragmentary Passage was a nice, if not quite sad, expansion of the original game and gave a good indication as to what type of gameplay we could see coming from KH3. Dream Drop Distance would have been better without the actual Dream Drop mechanic itself but seeing how Sora and Riku became Keyblade masters was cool I guess. The less said about Re:Chain of Memories, the better. I can’t say much about 358/2 Days or Re:Coded since I didn’t get to try out the actual gameplay out of it, but judging from the cutscenes, I found Re:Coded more engaging than 358/2 Days. Lastly, Union [X} was quite a bland, dull origin of the early conflicts between the Heart and Heartless that I could care less.

Also, Melody of Memory was pretty enjoyable too and a neat way to take a trip down memory lane. Here’s also gameplay of me sucking at it. xD (Yes, this is my YouTube channel btw.)

Regardless of the actual quality of the games (or cutscenes or that mini-movie), I no doubt was able to get that exact same feeling of wonder and excitement that I imagine the longtime fans did when they first played through these games. It just an interesting and unique concept that the series presented. A new, refreshing spin on the good vs evil story, instantly memorable and lovable characters, an intriguing if not convoluted universe, incredible bits of lore that you can’t help put look up some sort of Wiki article on, music that will stick with you the moment you first listen to it upon your own ears, and basically getting a chance of entering your own-self insert character into the imaginary worlds of Disney where you get a stab at creating your own Disney fanfiction. That might sound like a turn-off for some people but for me, it’s most certainly a turn-on for me. I mean who wouldn’t want to imagine themselves in the worlds of Lion King, Aladdin, Hercules, Toy Story, Tangled, Frozen, and Pirates of the Caribbean along with getting to fight alongside Donald, Goofy, or any one of your imaginary friends. With both the good and bad of the series, I never have had one regret spending as much time on the series as I did last year except for one thing. That one thing being not being able to experience it as a bigger part of my childhood and even teenage years.

I’m going to be heading into my mid 20s this year and the older I get, the more I become nostalgic to the things I’ve grown up with as both a young kid and a teenager. Whether it’s Nickelodeon, Disney, Spider-Man, Batman, Star Wars, Mario, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sonic the Hedgehog, Call of Duty, Halo, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Robot Chicken, the St. Louis Blues/Cardinals, etc., I now long for the days where I get to relive those special moments that intrigued me to whatever game, show, movie, or sporting event that got me into any of those. However, I don’t think there is one franchise that I certainly wish I didn’t miss out on as a part of my years growing up as I did with Kingdom Hearts. I can only imagine how amazing it would be to relief those special moments from the series as a youngster instead of now having to start at it from a distance as an adult.

Even though I wish Kingdom Hearts has had more of an impact on me for most of my life, I still got that same sense of nostalgia whenever I played through these games now. Not just because of the Disney worlds you get to explore from all the Disney movies I grew up watching as well, but because I instantly understood why this series has resonated for so many people. Not because it’s perfect but more because it’s imperfect. It’s definitely a convoluted mess on multiple occasions but it is OURS and THEIR convoluted mess. It’s like family, we might be angry and frustrated with them on many occasions but deep down, we know we will always love him. And I don’t think there’s another gaming franchise out there that gives that same sense of warmth, nostalgia, and being part of a family than with Kingdom Hearts. Sometimes, it can be difficult and messy but most of the time, well, it’s just simple and clean.

Happy 20th birthday, Kingdom Hearts! I look forward to see what the future has in store for you.

Also, happy birthday to my brother who now turns 22 years old today!

At least, I’ve always been able to feel something special on March 28th for the past two decades!

The title speaks for itself! That’s really all that needs to be said.

Just when you thought that the La La Land/Moonlight moment from five years ago couldn’t be topped as the most awkward and cringe inducing moment in the history of the Oscars, there comes Will Smith smacking Chris Rock straight in the face.

To provide some context of this big moment, while giving out a presentation at the Oscars, Chris Rock made a joke about Will Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith about her hairstyle, which is mostly a shaved head. Rock’s joke specifically referenced the movie G.I. Jane, a movie which actress Demi Moore shaved her heard in, and made a crack to Jada specifically saying he can’t wait for G.I. Jane 2.

There’s lies one huge problem here. Jada Pinkett Smith had recently been suffering from a hair loss condition called alopecia which has resulted with her being nearly bald. Needless to say, that joke was in INCREDIBLY poor taste to Smith (at least until he saw the reaction to Jada) and his wife.

Here’s is an uncensored clip of what undoubtedly will be one of the most (if not the most) talked about Oscars moments for plenty of years to come. Again, this is an uncensored version of it and you will hear a bit of language but if you want to see it for yourself, here’s a link from YouTube.

No doubt, everyone has opinions on it. Whether it’s who’s right, who’s wrong, if Will Smith should be charged for assault and have his Oscar revoked, if Chris Rock is just an incredibly tasteless comedian, or even if it was real or not?! Everyone will definitely have a take on this.

First off, I’m pretty sure that it was not scripted and it was definitely for real. If the slap itself wasn’t any indication, then Will Smith furiously shouting back at Chris Rock, dropping the f bomb certainly is. Secondly, there was also the events that followed after it went to commercial break. According to twitter source, Scott Feinberg, Smith was pulled aside once the break occurred and Denzel Washington and Tyler Perry came by him to calm him down. Will was seen wiping some tears off his eyes, sat back down with his wife, and Denzel came to the aid of the two couple. It’s then that the two waited to see if Will, an actor who will surely be remembered for that one infamous moment for the rest of his life will win his very first Oscar.

During the commercial break, Will Smith is pulled aside and comforted by Denzel Washington and Tyler Perry, who motion for him to brush it off. Will appears to wipe tears from his eyes as he sits back down with Jada, with Denzel comforting Jada and Will’s rep by his side. pic.twitter.com/uDGVnWrSS2

— Scott Feinberg (@ScottFeinberg) March 28, 2022

As it turns out, Will Smith did in fact win the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance as Richard Williams in the movie, King Richard. After receiving that award following that heated moment, he delivered quite a tearful if not downright awkward speech, where he (somewhat) apologizing for his actions to the Academy but not Chris Rock himself.

As much as I hate to be the person that wants to have a neutral opinion on this, I do think both sides could agree now that they could have handled that a thousand times better than they did. Deep down they wish they gave a split second thought of what they were about to do before they actually did it.

Rock clearly wanted to take back that joke he just said after seeing Jada’s not-so-enthused reaction to it along with seeing Will marching up stage to confront him. From his line delivery after that joke, it looked as if he regretted that joke and wanted to brush it off that it was nothing. He probably wanna to make a gesture and apologize either on-stage or off-stage to the Smiths.

Smith, while understandably wanting to stand up to his wife for that tasteless joke, deep down knows he should have settled that without violence. Maybe telling Rock to cool it or having a talk with him during commercial break about how offensive that joke was. Maybe then if Will Smith had won best picture, he could deliver an apology to Will and Jada and off a congratulation to Smith for winning his first ever Oscar.

Unfortunately in the case for both sides, this wasn’t a script that Hollywood was writing, this was the real deal. What’s done is done! No matter what the consequences are for this moment (or even if there is any at all), this will go down in history as a defining moment for the Academy. I just honestly wish it was a moment that we could all laugh at without feeling ashamed or making it anything personal.

For as embarrassing and cringeworthy the La La Land/Moonlight moment was, at least that was a moment that just about everyone could get a laugh at without the need for any feeling of guilt or shame with it. There wasn’t nothing personal about it or something I don’t anyone would take quite offense too. It was a honest mistake that I think everyone in the Academy and viewers could get a chuckle at. Plus, anyone that got to witness that event live would be able to tell their children or grand children many years down the line how they got to see with their own eyes one of the biggest blunders ever live on television.

As much as everyone is making jokes and memes about this moment while I am currently typing up this piece, I get the feeling that it will all come back to bite us as something we should have took a little more seriously. Regardless, no one can take back what happened last night. Whoever actually participated watching this year Oscars will surely look back at this moment and just remember how they were like, “What the f*ck just happened?!”

Other comments:

Update: It appears Chris Rock will not press charge against Will Smith, LADP reports.

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/chris-rock-police-report-will-smith-slap-oscars-1235216542/

Will Smith might be able to lose his Oscar for violating for breaking the Academy’s code of conduct.

https://nypost.com/2022/03/28/could-will-smith-lose-his-oscar-over-chris-rock-slap/

Another year, another Oscars that is around the corner. Not gonna waste any time and just get right into it.

Disclaimer: I think #1-3 are great, #4-6 are solid, #7-8 are mixed bags, and #9-10 are pretty darn bad. A rather “meh” lineup of nominations despite a handful of legit impressive films.

10.) Licorice Pizza

Okay, even taken out the obvious reasons why this is bad (the pedophlic romance, racist jokes, dated setting, etc.), this is by far the worst of the ten nominees and one that was clearly only nominated because of the name of the man behind the camera alone. I’ve never been the biggest fan of Paul Thomas Anderson but I could at least respect the majority of his filmography with the way he goes on making his films and become one of the very first of the “movie store” generations of filmmakers. This one however, falls apart even if you are somehow able to buy into it’s incredibly lost in time premise.

It’s overlong, the two leads have zero chemistry, subplots are brought up but never resolve, side characters constantly appear and then just disappear, and it doesn’t even have the slightest idea why this is the kind of a movie that could only work back in the 1970s but can’t work whatsoever in the 21st century. Thrown in the fact that the only entertaining character in the whole movie played by Bradley Cooper is only in it for 5 to 10 minutes top and you probably get the big (but nowhere near the best) picture.

Alana Halm and Cooper Hoffman are potential young talent but it’s a shame they had to start their Hollywood career with a movie this obnoxious. Although, just like with these ten nominations, there’s at least no where to go but up.

Or if the next film on the list is any indication , maybe looking up isn’t the best idea.

9.) Don’t Look Up

I never want to come across as that one arrogant person who claims that directors should stay out of politics with their films, especially since where now in an age where just about EVERYTHING is consider political in the eyes of one-sided groups. But, I do honestly wish Adam McKay would stop making films based around real world politics and global events because he’s just not really good at it.

Don’t Look Up basically brings home the point that The Big Short was an absolute fluke. After the notable misfire of Vice, a film that spend nearly it’s entire running time trying to beat you over the head with “George Bush=bad”, came this one which spend the majority of it’s running time trying to beat you over the head with “cell phones=bad” and “Fox News is for demwitts”. Even if you find yourself in on the “it’s funny because it’s true” joke that this film constantly points out, it’s not really something you should make an entire film based around it as it does nothing but show the overall lack of substance.

Regardless of what political side you are on (and please don’t tell me which side you are on in the comments) or even if you agree on what the film has to say on today’s technology obsessions and “fake news” (which I admittedly do to some degree), there are definitely much better ways to convey it than with what is presented here.

It’s nice to have J-Law and Leo back in movies though.

8.) The Power of the Dog

This might baffle some folks considering I had this as a nomination on my Best Movies of 2021 list but time hasn’t been quite kind to this (To be honest, there’s a lot I would change on that list now). Even taking out the recent controversy over Sam Elliot’s homophobic comments of the picture, Power of the Dog is a very well-made and acted motion picture but really lacks an emotional connection or any sort of staying power.

Despite great performances from the whole cast, none of the characters they play are particularly memorable and have very little depth to them. The central dynamic between McPhee and Cumberbatch’s character comes across as hollow and not worth getting invested in. The pacing itself is also incredibly slow which despite clocking it at just a little over two hours, it can’t help but feel longer than that.

That being said the production values are top notch with great lightning and cinematography throughout and the cast are strong enough to hold their own that might even keep you engaged when watching it but will most likely fade away from your mind just a few days afterwards.

While this is certainly not the worst nomination, this is the one that I would argue is the most forgettable one.

Although, I wouldn’t keep this on my honorable mentions, I do stand by my statement that Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, and Kodi Smit-McPhee are exceptionally underrated talents that deserve much more recognition!

Also, I would now replace this movie with No Time To Die on my honorable mentions.

Anyways, onto the next one.

7.) West Side Story

Steven Spielberg had already made a musical in the past before this one. It’s called Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And I’m not just saying that because the opening of that movie featured a musical sequence but because it was that exact scene that showcases what the rest of the movie was going to consist of, that anything goes. With West Side Story, it’s half of exactly that and half of that is just well, not.

If there’s every a movie that will make you believe life after death, it’s this one. Whenever Ansel Eligort is on the screen, the movie instantly dies (and that’s not even just remotely because of the multiple allegations that have come out against him that Hollywood is trying to pretend doesn’t exist). However, every time he leaves the screen and the movies focuses on anyone else from the cast, it’s brought back to alive and well.

Arian DeBose and Mike Faist are the absolute standouts here and there are plenty of enjoyable and upbeat musical numbers that will most likely keep you interested throughout it’s near two and a half hour runtime; at least until Eligort reveres his ugly head once again and the film suffers repeatedly. Perhaps with some better pacing and a more compelling lead (Rachel Ziegler is fine here btw), this could have been a musical for the ages and even superior to that of the original (which I think is also just fine btw). As it stands now, it’s generally okay but definitely not the best that musicals or the mighty Steven Spielberg has had to offer.

Seriously though, Hollywood! It’s time for Angel Eligort to be be held accountable!.

6.) Belfast

You ever watched a movie that you think is overall pretty good and worthwhile but shouldn’t really be considered for an Oscar. Well, Belfast is the one that fits that criteria for me.

There’s certainly plenty to admire and enjoy here. The cast members are great, the material is engaging, Kenneth Branagh’s direction is top-notch, and it’s overall transition to black and white feels extremely appropriate for the time and place that this movie is set in. That being said, I still can’t help but think that perhaps this movie bites off a bit more than it can chew.

It tries to balance between a family drama and a political drama but can’t quite find that consistent through line that even say Taika Waititi was able to do with Jojo Rabbit. There’s are also times to where it feels the movie is trying way too hard to make you like the characters that you can’t help but wish the movie would back off every once in a while and let us as the viewers get sucked into the conflict that is actually presented in the story.

This is Oscar bait as it’s finest without a doubt, but this is the mostly kind of Oscar bait that I don’t mind seeing nominated even if it really doesn’t deserve it.

5.) Coda

The one nominee that “Film Twitter” seems to have the biggest grudge against for whatever reason. Which is odd considering the great reviews this got from most critics and the mostly positive audience reception to this smash hit on Apple +. I’m not quiet sure how accurate this is to overall sign language or the deaf community as a whole response to this movie but taken as it’s own thing, Coda is a very enjoyable and compelling movie in it’s own right.

The performances from it’s cast are very strong, especially Emila Jones who stands out well as being this young girl on the verge towards a distinct future that could separate her from her own deaf family. The other deaf/non-hearing cast members are superb as well and will certainly make at least a handful of viewers want to look up and study foreign language. Between this, Sound of Metal, and Eternals, it does feel quite nice to have that level of representation to make deaf people feel more understood.

One can definitely argue that the film’s overall representation is focused on more than the actual quality of the movie but the movie we have is quite solid that I could see a reason or two for winning. For what some are claiming this as the next Crash or Green Book if this ends up taking home the Best Picture Oscar, this might be one of the very few times I will find myself rooting for exactly that outcome even if I don’t exactly think it’s the best or my personal favorite.

Also, I’m just someone that likes to watch the world burn.

4.) Dune

Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is a remarkable and impressive visual achievement that was hands down one of the biggest “must-see” experiences in IMAX theaters in 2021. With it’s enormous scale, diverse cast, and world building like we haven’t seen before in recent memory, this sci-fi epic is just ready to insert itself into every book of “movies you must watch before you die” imaginable!

That being said, Dune doesn’t so much feel like a whole movie but more like Dune: Part I. While it does end on an intriguing cliffhanger, we won’t know how worthwhile this experience will be until after we have seen the complete picture in a year or two from now.

I do kinda get the sense that this was also a nomination mostly due to the director’s name himself than the actual film but unlike with Licorice Pizza or Don’t Look Up, it still at least functions as an actual good film and I could see why it would get a nomination. Two years from now, I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends becoming the next big sci-fi epic that Hollywood will desperately try to copy and replicate with iffy results.

3.) King Richard

When it comes to young children becoming famous and getting exposed to the paparazzi-like media, one side that is not looked much upon by people is the side of the parents. Sure, children comes first and foremost but the parents are as equally responsible for being able to guide and teach their kids on how to get through life with the lights shining directly on them.

In comes King Richard, this biopic sports drama showing the success and growth of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams as young girls through the perspective of their overprotective but still very meaningful father, Richard Williams. This dives deep into the process and difficulty of being a parent having to guide their children through fame and glory. Manage to display all the accomplishments and achievements that the Williams sisters were able to gain as superb tennis players while showing how they got to where they are thanks to the folks who gave birth to them!

Whether or not you’re a fan of tennis, this will engage you thanks to it’s sharp directing and terrific performances. Will Smith hasn’t been this good in a long time and should certainly be a front runner for Best Actor. Aunjanue Ellis is also great as the mother as well as Demi Singelton and Saniyya Sidney who played the two William sisters respectively.

Some might be underwhelmed that the movie don’t put as much focus on the sisters themselves as much as the father but it’s a very good sports movie regardless.

Also, what were you expecting about a movie titled, King Richard? Just saying.

2.) Nightmare Alley

It’s absolutely insane the way that Guillermo del Toro continues to either top or at least matches himself as a filmmaker! Easily one of the most creative, inventive, and visually pleasing directors today, Nightmare Alley see del Toro putting his own spin on the 1946 classic of the same name along with the book it’s based on.

Whether it manages to top or match the 1947 version or the book is up for debate but there’s no denying he created a version of Nightmare Alley that stands perfectly well as it’s own unique thing. Using all the trademarks and skillset that del Toro is well known for, this tells a great tale in the neo-noir sub genre about a man facing the consequences of his action that was driving by his own pride.

Bradley Cooper suits the role well as a manipulative and despicable a-hole, Cate Blanchett and Toni Collette continues to find ways to out-hot themselves as the femme fatales, and when is Willem Dafoe ever not been awesome (Between this and Spider-Man: No Way Home, Christmas 2021 will be remember as the holiday where Willem Dafoe is able to show the world once again what an absolute national treasure he is!)

This is one I loved when I first saw and love it even more on a second viewing. It’s one of my favorite movies of last year and easily one of my favorites of the nominees. However, there’s just one that I liked just a hair more.

1.) Drive My Car

Not gonna lie, the fact this movie is even a nomination in the first place is a miracle. Not because it isn’t a great film, it clearly is as that’s why it’s #1. But it was a movie overseas that felt too small to get any sort of recognition and even in the wake of Parasite, did seem like a foreign movie that the Academy would easily gloss over. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case because Drive My Car is the best of the nomination by a country mile.

The three hour runtime might be taunting to some viewers but there isn’t a single second on screen that feels like a waste. What we have here is a very long but moving meditation on loss, mourning, and trying to move on with an incredibly compelling lead performance by Hidetoshi Nishijima who makes this an emotional journey like no other film I’ve seen for quite some time. The characters throughout the film are greatly developed, it’s themes are fleshed out to it’s absolute best execution, and has an incredibly relatable message that anyone who has dealt with pain and death with a loved one can get behind. Sometimes the best way to deal with such tragic times is to take a sweet, long drive that can make that missing part of you feel whole again.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi directs the hell out of his feature film which may be long but will no doubt leave an impact on you even days after you have watched it. While I’m not 100% confident that this will be the one that will take home the big prize, this will be the movie that I will undoubtedly be rooting for come Sunday evening.

Other comments:

And those are my ranking of the best picture nominations. While I don’t necessarily love or even like every single entry that is presented here, it does at least feel nice to have at least a complete total of the allowed amount of best picture nominees at full ten.

As for other movies I’m shocked didn’t get nominated or would at least swap for I believe is a more “Oscar-worthy” movie, the fact that Pig or The Last Duel didn’t get a single nomination of anything, let along best picture, is absolutely criminal. I would easily swap Licorice Pizza and Don’t Look Up for those two easily. Also, I swap West Side Story for Tick, tick..Boom! as that was undoubtedly the superior musical between the two. Lastly, I might just be speaking because it was my favorite film of last year but I do feel like The Mitchell vs the Machines is great enough to at least find a spot among the ten nominations. I highly doubt anybody would cry themselves to sleep if Belfast or Power of the Dog weren’t one of the front runners.

I was also gonna share my overall pics for all 24 Oscar nominations but because I don’t enjoy watching the Oscars anywhere near as much as I used to or might not be able to watch it at all (I do have plans for a work party on that exact same night.), I can’t be bothered to waste precious time just copying directly off of the first website I see of their own picks for every single winner out there and pretend to make those choices as my own. So, apologies if there was anyone that was looking forward to that.

Anyways, I hope everyone has a good weekend and go Drive My Car!

Warning: The following contains major spoilers for The Batman. If you haven’t seen the movie yet and don’t want anything spoiled, then I would advise to click off this piece and watch the movie first before reading through what I’m about to say.

So, there’s was a new Batman movie come out and it was pretty darn awesome. Not quite the flawless masterpiece that some have claimed it to be but no doubt it’s been an absolute win for fans of the character along with mainstream audience as well as being a sure box office hit for the folks at Warner Brothers. From the looks of it, it seems that WB is strictly committed to having a Batman shared universe of it’s own to distance itself from the other shared universe that they have with all of the other DC characters. This most likely has to do with the fact that Ben Affleck is looking to step away from the role of the caped crusader after what will most likely be a brief appearance in the upcoming Flash movie and getting Michael Keaton back in the bat suit one more time to get people actually interested in said Flash movie along with his version of Batman acting as a mentor figure to Leslie Grace’s Batgirl so she can carry the Batman person for the foreseeable future of the DC Extended Universe. Because of that, it seems like Robert Pattinson’s incarnation of the character mostly seems to exist for two specific reasons. 1.) To give the mainstream audience a new version of Batman that can stand well as it’s own thing for at least the next 5 to 10 years and 2.) so that Warner Bros has some sort of escape plan if this new strategy for the DCEU doesn’t work at all and they can then just fall back on their most profitable superhero to make up for any potential losses.

While The Batman does tend to work well on it’s own as a self-contained story that largely hints at a darker, grimmer Gotham City than we have seen in the past, it did include introductions of certain characters and plot points that will no doubt have some sort of pay-off in either the upcoming sequels or spin-off HBO Max series that Warner Bros has planned. There are two specific ones that stands out more than the rest. The first one is with Colin Farrell’s Penguin who despite not serving that much of a purpose to the overall story, still does make for a delightful presence and is a character that definitely has room to be explored on later on down the road with this universe. The other one, however comes from no other than a character who was credited as “Unseen Arkham Prisoner, A.K.A. the Joker. That’s right! Mr. J is at it right again and this time he is played by Barry Keoghan (who you might remember from Dunkirk and just recently with the (underrated) Eternals).

Joker’s appearance take place right at the tail end of the movie with the final scene that consists of Paul Rino’s The Riddler. This part takes place in Arkham Asylum after The Riddler had recently turned himself in hoping it would get him closer to Batman and convince that they are on the same page with what they are trying to do with Gotham. Despite Batman refusing to have alliance with him, The Riddler’s master plan was successful with him being able to flood the whole corrupted city and have it be in an even worse place than it already was at the very beginning of the picture. It’s then that he talks and befriends an inmate in the Asylum who has a cell right next to him. That specific inmate has now been identified and confirmed by director Matt Reeves to be the Joker. Similar to the Batman, it’s not quite the Joker that the world has been grown accustom too or has made the impact that he desperately wants onto Gotham City but there’s no doubt that this is the real deal.

Matt Reeves has gone on record claiming that he had an extended scene with Keoghan’s Joker that was ultimately cut from the film due to either pacing problems or taking too much focus away from the main tro of characters. However, it was just yesterday that Reeves himself shared on social media that exact five minute long scene that was cut. What happens during the scene is Batman going to confront the supposed Joker to try to get the insight as to what exactly Riddler’s overarching plan is suppose to be and what his overall endgame is.

Here’s the actual scene uploaded straight from YouTube.

The scene itself is…..fine I guess. I do quite dig the way they make the Joker look absolutely unappealing to look at and Barry Keoghan has a more believable laugh and presence as the clown prince of crime than say Jared Leto. However, I do agree with the decision to remove this scene from the movie. Not just because it would feel rather awkward to have Batman interact with an inmate asylum that is kinda sorta on the verge of becoming the Joker who we not have meet for the previous two hours of the film but because, I think we have had just enough of the Joker as a whole.

If you read my original review for this movie, I pointed out that a minor problem I had was a tease near the end of a certain character that honestly made my eyes roll when I first saw it in theaters. It was the laziest sequel bait tease imaginable and did kinda render the movie as not quite as self-contain that the people behind the scenes were clearly aiming for. At least the sequel tease in Batman Begins was at the very last scene of the movie where Batman has accepted his role as a crime fighting vigilante and has taken his first steps into fitting into that exact persona. Not only that, it has made me a bit less excited for the upcoming sequels that will no doubt have Joker play some sort of role whether it’s big or small because why else would you have a specific tease for him in this exact movie. Personally, I’m now finding the Joker to be rather exposed and lately, quite redundant.

I understand the Joker is Batman’s greatest enemy (don’t let Will Arnett hear that) and it always has been that the overall main conflict surrounding the Batman/Bruce Wayne persona is with those two different point of views and ideologies always clashing with one another. However, there are still plenty of other Batman villains that you can focus on that can too present a great conflict for Batman from both a physical and psychological point. We have a rose gallery of Batman baddies that have still yet to appear on the big screen. Mad Hatter, Clayface, Hugo Strange, Solomon Grundy, Hush, the Court of Owls, Man-bat, Professor Pyg, Deathstroke*, Cooperhead, Killermoth. Heck, even certain villains that have already been the antagonists in animated movie such as Red Hood and Phantasm could still have potential stories of their own and a fresh new take on those certain characters that can make for engaging stuff. Can we just for once focus on those kind of villains instead of just constantly finding a way to include Joker in everything? For once, can we not just seem like we must always include the Joker into nearly everything Batman because that seems to be the only way to get people to actually care about anything surrounding Batman?

Since 2016, we have now gotten three different Jokers in live-action. Three Joker actors in the span of just six years. Jared Leto in Suicide Squad and ZS’s Justice League, Joaquin Phoenix in his own standalone Joker movie, and now Barry Keoghan in The Batman. Heck, if you also count some of the animated flicks (at least the ones that were *technically* released in theaters), we also had Mark Hamill’s iconic Joker reprised in Killing Joke, Jeff Bergman also reprising the clown prince of crime for Return of the Caped Crusader, and Zack Galifianakis’s funny, subversive take on Mr. J in Lego Batman. That’s literally six different Jokers in just six years. Some have been better than others without a doubt, but really? Am I the only that believes that we have gotten quite overboard with this character?

Plus, I kinda get the feeling that we basically have done all we possibly could with the Joker up to this point in terms of feature length films. We’ve had the campy and over-the-top Jokers with Jeff Bergman and Zack Galifianakis, the more brutal and realistic Joker with Heath Ledger, the more human like Joker with an actual origin story with Jack Nicholson and Joaquin Phoenix, the abusive, manipulative and more “sexy” Joker with Jared Leto, and of course, the one that is the most iconic and truly represents the tug-and-pull war that has confronted Batman on multiple occasions with Mark Hamill. Other than showing a Joker that is still in the early phase of becoming the Joker that will forever haunt Gotham and Batman internally, what else is there to explore with this character that isn’t a retread from any one of these versions? As of this moment, there’s not much I can think off.

We know everything that the Joker is suppose to represent to Batman. He’s someone that sees himself as a force of nature along with his own sick, twisted version of “necessary evil” to be able to have the exact kind of impact onto Gotham that Batman is trying to go for as well. He uses violence and evil tactics to expose hypocrisy with what goes on today with crime, corruption, citizenship, social groups, police forces, political agendas, and however the government. He’s someone that believes his only true purpose in life is to take Batman head on for all internity and won’t stop until either one of them breaks first or either one of them are dead. He’s someone that deep downs see Batman as an equal and can’t imagine a world without him. Those are all criterias of the Joker fit to a t that has been explored on upon in at least one of each feature film that is presented with him. We have pretty much have done every interesting thing we could possibly do with this character.

You might get the impression that I hate the Joker and I’m sounding like a noob for complaining about there being too much of the Joker. Regardless how I feel about his overexposure, Joker is and always will be a fascinating character who will always go down as one of the greatest villains in any form of fiction. But, that doesn’t mean you have to give literally every single little bit and attention of detail to this particular character just because he’s without a doubt the most popular comic book villain of all time.

Heck, I would be even more open to see more Harley Quinn than the Joker in the future. At least that’s a character that so far has only one definite version of her on the big screen. She’s someone that is compelling and interesting enough to be able to explore the multiple different sides to her that still have yet to be touched upon in feature films. Whether it’s her as the submissive girlfriend, a strong independent woman, or even the fun, funny and batshit crazy version of her, she still is a woman that can carry a movie and becoming her own unique character without the need to come across as simply female Joker. Plus, we can always use more Margot Robbie in our lives, just saying?

I’m not gonna pretend I even had the slimmest idea of what Matt Reeves and company have planned for their Joker for this incarnation of Batman. There’s a big chance that I’m possibly overacting to their being another new Joker that has been confirmed with this new Batman movie. If they keep the focus on newer, distinct villains such as the Hush or the Court of Owls or even Penguin and Riddler while keeping this Joker to the wayside, then that’s all well and good. If they plan on trying to build hype and anticipation around this Joker by including extended cameos in the next few films or shows kinda like the way Marvel Cinematic Universe did with Thanos, then I might actually find that intriguing. Just please put new villains or old ones you already have established to the forefront just long enough until audience members are finally hungry for another round of with J-Bird.

To once again paraphrase an other well-known super villain, when everyone is Joker, no one will be.

Whenever movies like The Lost City comes around, you always tend to hear this exact phrase from old film buffs, “they don’t make them like that anymore”. I think the reason for the constant uttering of that phrase is more than those folks realize. It’s not necessarily because they don’t actually makes movies like this anymore as they clearly do. We got Uncharted last month, Jungle Cruise about nine months ago, and there’s even a chance in the near future that we’ll be getting a 80-year old Harrison Ford back as Indiana Jones. I believe that more comes from the notion that these kind of flicks that come out today don’t give them that exact same sense of adventurous nostalgia that the better kind of these movies did in the 1980s, most notably Raiders of the Lost Ark or (at least in this film’s case) Romancing the Stone. No movie genre or sub-genre can stay dead forever. Even when it’s dead and buried, life will always find a way to resurrect it. Why else do you think we’re still getting superhero movies 25 years after Batman and Robin?

The fact we have to treat movies like The Lost City as high regard for the subgenre of romcom and adventure flicks or else it will go away forever is quite preposterous. These kind of movies don’t have to be game-changers to be good, they just need to be good in their own rights. And for the most part, The Lost City is pretty good. It’s not great and I’m not quite sure if it could be considered good underneath the surface if you took away it’s charismatic cast, but it does it’s job of delivering a breezy crowd pleaser that has the right blend of action, adventure, romance, and comedy to make for a solid night out at the movies.

Premise: Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock), an author who is famous for writing romantic-adventure novels that focuses on a fictional protagonist named Dash, who is portrayed by a handsome but dumb model named Alan Caprison (Channing Tantum). However, despite her success, she had gained a constant feeling of being unsatisfied with the direction who career is going. While on a tour with Alan to promote her new book, Loretta is kidnapped by a mercenary named Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe), an energetic billionaire who believe that the supposed “lost city” in Loretta’s new book is in fact the real deal and demands that she take him there. Alan, who has no survival skills, hires a CIA agent (Brad Pitt) and goes on a quest to find and rescue her.

The plot is about as basic as these kind of movies can get with not much depth or complexity to be found here. While there’s an interesting idea for potential meta commentary about fantasy vs reality, not believing in every single thing that you read, or even doing a Se7en or Memento style of “a movie in a movie”, it’s not really explored that much upon and acts more as an excuse for a trio of likeable actors to go on an amusing adventure together. But that’s okay because everyone in this talented cast brings their A-game and is able to do the very best with the admittedly surface level of material they are giving to work with.

The biggest main focus of the movies focuses around the relationship between Sandra Bullock’s Loretta and Channing Tantum’s Alan. On paper, this sounds like the oddest and worst pairing possible. It’s the kind of pairing that certainly been seen as a lazy excuse to do the whole “opposites attract” trope (one which Jurassic World did INCREDIBLY poorly), but it works here because both Bullock and Tantum are very likeable presents and are able to add just enough depth to their characters which come across more than just one-note cartoon action figures. Sandra Bullock has recently hinted at potentially heading to a semi-retirement. If that’s the case, then at least she is able to show everyone what an absolutely likeable and welcome present she always is on the big screen as Loretta (Greenlight Ocean’s 9, you cowards!). Channing Tantum shows that there’s more to his comedic chops than with the Jump Street movies. While his character is suppose to come across as being the “hot dumb guy” of the picture, the film thankfully doesn’t go too overboard with it and does allow for Tantum to have a few stand out moments for himself without taking anything away from Alan.

The rest of the cast stand out well as well, particularly that of Daniel Radcliffe’s Abigail as the antagonist along with Brad Pitt’s Jack Trainer. Radcliffe admittedly is not one you can fully buy as being a scary or intimating villain but he does absolutely chew the scenery of being the toxic fanboy that reads too deeply into things that it’s genuinely hard to care. Brad Pitt does make for a welcome presence but he isn’t in the movie as much as you would expect. Almost as if directors Adam & Aaron Nee didn’t want his character to come across as being too badass and have Pitt steal his thunder away from that upcoming Bullet Train movie where he is guaranteed to be kicking all kinds of ass there. Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Patti Harrison, and Oscar Nunez as Beth Hatten, Allison, and Oscar respectively don’t quite land the banter and quips as the rest of the crew but they are not in the movie nearly enough to where it comes across as a big problem and do have some chuckle worthy moments regardless.

It might seem odd that I’m mostly focusing on the cast rather than the other aspects of the movies but that’s mostly because it’s this star power crew of talent that is able to carry the whole picture and it’s abundantly clear that is the attend on the filmmakers part. You can definitely argue it falls into the kind of action adventure clichés that more recent flicks of this sub-genre couldn’t avoid, but at least here, it’s able to nail the cast of characters that are able to provide their own room of depth and traits that it doesn’t matter how somewhat thinly written their characters are.

The movie does drag in the middle where there is at least good 15 or 20 minutes where the momentum stops completely as it’s mostly consists of scenes of Bullock and Tantum together to further develop their chemistry so that their endgame to their relationship can make and kind of sense. There are at least one or two shots were the green screen is painfully noticeable (Film Twitter is gonna have a field day with this movie once it hits home media). Plus, as I said in the beginning, it’s somewhat of a shame that the movie doesn’t even attempt to add a bit of intrigue to it’s plot despite it’s overall premise just screaming of “a movie inside of a movie” where it’s main character is an author and goes on the exact kind of fantasy adventure with her “too handsome to be true” male counterpart that she writes about for a living. Then again, that probably could be too much for the movie’s target demographic that it would possibly be seen as a step too far. Lastly, comparisons to The Romancing the Stone are very obvious and while I still argue the movie works well enough as it’s own thing, you will probably be able to notice the structural similarities if you look too deep into it.

There definitely is a sense of The Lost City being looked down upon as not being the genre bending film that certain folks want this to be. While that might be true on the surface level, at the very least the movie doesn’t try to pretend to be anything more than that or deceive it’s audience into thinking it’s something much more grand than it actually is. It’s the kind of a flick that is pointless to pick apart and criticize because it’s very clear everyone on the production of this movie are getting together to just have a fun time. Having a fun time by making the exact kind of flick that they probably grew up watching in the theaters and sharing there love of it onto casual movie goers. And a fun time it absolutely is.

The Lost City is a brisk, enjoyable adventure flick that some might be able to get more out of than they did with other similar recent movies of this sub-genre like say Uncharted or Jungle Cruise. The beats worked, the jokes mostly land, the cast are a blast to watch, and it’s not a chore to sit through. As I’ve said many times throughout this review, this probably would not have worked if it weren’t for the likable bunch of talent on the big screen but they were up on the big screen throughout the film’s 102-minute long runtime. Because of that, I can’t help but like it.

Last week, I had the privilege to see a special screening for the original LEGO Movie in theaters. It was the first time I ever saw the movie on the big screen. One of the biggest mistakes I ever made in regards to choosing which films to see is when I picked to see that shitty and forgettable Robocop remake (You completely forgot that was a real thing, didn’t you?!) over The LEGO Movie. A decision that was so shameful that it makes me want to take a shower every time I think about. However, eight years later, I was able to correct that one big wrong and see that brilliant animation flick the way it was suppose to be seen.

Which makes it an incredibly unlikely coincidence in that just yesterday there came the announcement that a movie about Play-Doh is in the works being written by Emily V. Gordon (The Big Sick) and produced and most likely directed by Jon M. Chu (Into the Heights). The reactions so far to this is pretty much the same reactions when it was announced there was going to be a movie based off of emojis. Nothing but eyes rolling. Yet again, that dreaded sense of Hollywood constantly scrapping the bottomless bottom of the littlest little barrel. However, just like whenever there’s been a confirmation that a movie with an odd premise is announced, there are a handful of individuals out there that claim we should give the movie the benefit of the doubt simply because The LEGO Movie, a movie that everyone raised their eyebrows at too when it was announced, turned out to be good. Personally, I find that line of thinking to be quite flawed and here’s why.

It’s no secret that Hollywood always tend to learn the absolute wrong lessons when movies of a certain genre or medium are a big success. After The Dark Knight, that gave them the impression that people want superhero movies that were dark, joyless, and took themselves extremely seriously with no sense of humor or levity to speak of. After The Avengers, that gave them the idea that people now just want corny and cheesy superhero movies that don’t take themselves seriously at all and everything has to be a cinematic universe. After Star Wars: The Force Awakens (and to some extent, Jurassic World) , it gave them the notion that all you have to do to revive franchises is to make an installment that’s mostly a remake or remix of the original movies with a handful of new characters while bringing back the aging old original cast as side characters, since audience now seem to treat their favorite franchises like their favorite fast food restaurants, just wanting the same stuff they got last time. And after the success of Spider-Man: No Way Home, don’t be surprised to see every big franchise out there trying to find some bulls*it, nonsensical way of creating a multiverse to have an excuse to bring back other incarnations of that said series. No matter what movie is successful and how Hollywood chooses to response to it, they always manage to screw it ups somehow

In this case, the success of The LEGO Movie gave Hollywood (and most moviegoers) the indication that you can literally make a movie out of literally ANYTHING and it will work out…..just because. No matter how far fetched a concept of a movie sounds or how odd it’s premise is, you can still make a movie out of it all because The LEGO Movie exists. It created the notion that a movie can never have actually have a bad idea, it’s just the execution that matters. To anyone that believes that, I think you really tend to forgot why The LEGO Movie was looked down upon at first.

The main reason that The LEGO Movie was looked down upon at the beginning is because that on paper, it sounded like the most cynical, soulless toy commercial imaginable. It’s the kind of movie that could easily be given a pass just for simple being a “kids” movie. It makes for the best kind of “critic proof” movie that would use the whole “it’s for kids” schtick as it’s own “get out of jail free” card. It’s the perfect excuse to make the most safe, lazy, and plain deposable movie possible and really only matters if the characters in the movie are able to sell greatly as dolls, action figures, or in this case, LEGOS. Especially in the case of LEGOS, that seems like the kind of movie that would feel right at home as a tv movie that would debut on Cartoon Network or as a straight-to-dvd/Netflix rental. It wasn’t necessarily the idea of making a movie involving LEGOS that was the issue, it was the belief that the movie would contain an overemphasis on marketing brand and shareholding that was thought to be the big problem.

Making a movie involving LEGOS is a concept that has endless potential. It’s a movie where you can have the LEGO people be actual characters who get development, have it’s own unique animation style, create tons of exciting and inventive set pieces, add in some original jokes, subvert/poke fun at certain movie cliches, and have a heartfelt message that can appeal to both kids and adults that have played with LEGOS at some point in their lives. There is an actual premise to work with there. That’s exactly what Phil Lord and Chris Miller realized when sitting comfortably in the director’s chair and used that unique premise to their fullest advantage.

While I’m sure the movie was able to help sell tons of LEGO sets the way that stockholders hoped it would, The LEGO Movie was able to be something much more than simply be a movie exist to sell toys, even if that was intention with stockholders. It showed that just because you’re a brand doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice the artistic integrity and creativity to make something special. The potential of a movie with LEGOS was always there. It wasn’t a success simply because it was The LEGO Movie, it was a success because it had a fun concept and came out of it with execution that was nothing short of magnificent.

This is where I draw the line with people that always want to go “but The LEGO Movie was good” every time a movie surrounding an incredibly bizarre concept is confirmed to be in development. That’s the notion that Hollywood wants to give across to audiences after the critical and commercial success of The LEGO Movie and with what’s come afterwards, shows once again them failing to learn the understanding of their achievements. If you want complete proof of that, look no further than The Emoji Movie.

The Emoji Movie was always doom to fail because of how inherently flawed it’s premise is and the way they chose to go about it. You can’t provide development or depth to emojis because emojis themselves aren’t something that can carry a feature length film. Emojis are not characters, they’re images, icons, emotions, and can’t have anything resembling a three-dimensional person because that’s just not what it is. The fact that the filmmakers behind that movie didn’t realize that immediate fact before even starting production for that turd bascially made it doomed from the start.

At best, the only way The Emoji Movie could have worked was if it was a spoof that poked fun at itself and the whole idea of emojis (similar to Sausage Party, even though I’m not a fan of it), but it didn’t do that. Instead, The Emoji Movie actually thought it was actually a real movie. It thought it had an actual story to tell, an actual arc it was providing it’s main character, and an actual message it wanted to convey. It failed spectacularly because it didn’t seem to realize how completely absurd it’s own premise was and actually believed it was saying something meaningful. Also, the heavy amount of product placement didn’t help much either. The LEGO Movie had a branding foundation that has real characters and style to work with, The Emoji Movie did not and nether does Play-Doh.

While I’m a big fan of The Big Stick and enjoyed Into the Heights, I just don’t see how Emily V. Gordon and Jon M. Chu can make a movie involving the Play-Doh brand work unless they go the spoof or meta route as I previously mentioned. This announcement goes back to my point of why everyone including Hollywood needs to go back and rewatch The LEGO Movie as to why the movie ACTUALLY worked! It didn’t work JUST because it involved LEGOS, it worked because it involved heart, passion, and a crew that wanted to do something new, funny, heartfelt, creative, inventive, and subversive with its sandbox of a premise. Play-Doh is the kind of brand that severely lacks any ounce of potential multimedia expansion with it’s property because there’s hardly anything to work with as an actual feature film.

If or when the movie comes out and it turns out to be next Emoji Movie, this would be yet another example of Hollywood missing the point of it’s own successes and made honestly make people start to question whether or not The LEGO Movie, the movie which every studio is trying to rip-off/emulate, was every any good in the first place. When that day comes when we start to actual question the quality of The LEGO Movie because of all the failed attempts at trying to capture that same magic, that will show off little understanding Hollywood and most people have as to why that exact movie every worked to begin with.

I sure can’t wait though until that Barbie movie comes out and Greta Gerwig somehow is able to make a masterpiece out of that. (Update from future me: SHE DID!)

(I sure can’t wait to see Warner Bros and Mattle screw the success of Barbie with them greenlighting a dozen other projects at once with premises that don’t make a lick of sense just because the Barbie movie was a thing. I can almost copy and paste everything I just say and apply it to Barbie. It wouldn’t be Hollywood if history didn’t repeat itself I guess.)

Link to article about the Play-Doh Animated Movie in the Works:

• https://variety.com/2022/film/news/play-doh-movie-emily-v-gordon-jon-m-chu-1235208674/

For the past two and a half decades (save for 1997 and 1999), Joe Buck has been the World Series. For nearly a quarter of that time, he has also been the Super Bowl as well. Those are undeniable facts! Love him or hate him, it’s the absolute truth!

It’s been reported all this week that Joe Buck will be leaving Fox and is joining Troy Aikman (who has been his partner for two decades along with those six Super Bowls he announced) where he will now be doing Monday Night Football games on ESPN. The duo who have already been abducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame will be coming together once again to do weekly NFL games along with providing exclusive content for ESPN +.

This can been seen as both a shocker but also something that we could have all seen coming. Aikman had already left Fox a couple of weeks prior to join ESPN as he revealed that Fox didn’t offer him an extension. Buck, on the other hand, had at least one year left on his contract which would have ended after next year’s Super Bowl. He has also gone on record saying how much of an exhausting experience it can be with announcing games and constantly needing to travel over and over again, especially in October where he has to do Thursday Night and Sunday Afternoon games for the NFL along with the League Championship Series and the World Series for the MLB. However, it seems as though the two sides came to a mutual agreement and decided to go their separate ways a year prior to his expiration.

It hasn’t been 100% confirmed who’s going to replace Buck for both baseball and football games for Fox. Recent reports have claimed that the favorites to succeed Joe include Kevin Burkhardt for the NFL and Joe Davis for the MLB. We still have yet to have absolute confirmation from Fox but there was absolute confirmation earlier yesterday from the Buckster (I promise that’s the only time I will call him that) himself on his Twitter that he has officially sign on to join ESPN for Monday Night Football.

Beyond excited for the next chapter of my life. Here we go!!! @TroyAikman @espn pic.twitter.com/ggdlnziFQy

— Joe Buck (@Buck) March 16, 2022

I don’t know or am gonna pretend to know what went on from behind the scenes at Fox to why this big move was made but I do know one thing, sports will never be the same again now.

Personally, I like Joe Buck. He may not be the most exciting or the most enthusiastic sports announcer out there but he is one that keeps it real and doesn’t come across as tryhard. He always know exactly what to say at the exact moment and always know when to let the game itself do the talking. He has a dry sense of humor but knows when to add a bit of levity to the booth. He is always someone that whenever you hear that he’s going to announce a particularly game, you know damn well that it’s going to be a big one. He also just has a special deep raspy voice that was just absolutely MADE for broadcasting!

Also, he once called a touchdown while taking a piss! How can you not love the man?!

(There was also that time where he called an NFL game AND a NLCS game on the exact same way!)

Link: https://www.si.com/more-sports/2012/10/15/joe-buck-tomlinson-tebow

It has become the popular opinion among sports fans to hate Joe Buck. Whenever he’s announcing a game, you always see his name trending on Twitter and at least 90% of the time, the tweets aren’t very friendly. The criticism that you always hear from them is that Joe Buck is too biased, boring, talks too much, constantly repeats himself, and always tends to state the obvious.

(And there was also that one time where he seemed to have a vendetta against Randy Moss for “twerking”.)

I’ll admit I do have more specific reasons to like Joe Buck than most. Part of it is because I’ve lived near St. Louis (where Joe himself lives) my whole life and have heard him multiple times announce games for my favorite baseball team, the St. Louis Cardinals. There was also my parents who grew up with his father Jack Buck being the voice of the Cardinals (We can never forget Jack’s iconic line from the 1982 World Series) and have seen Joe himself grow to becoming the biggest sports broadcaster on the planet when he started his career with booth duties here in St. Louis. And there was also that one time where I got his autograph when he signed my copy of his book, Lucky Bastard. It’s perfectly fair to claim I have my own personal bias for Joe Buck but I do think he is better than many sports fan give him credit for.

(There was also that one time where he stopped in the booth during a Blues game and announced that for about five minutes.)

Firstly, about 99% of the criticism that is always thrown at Joe Buck can be honestly apply to nearly every single sport announcer out there. With some very few exceptions (mostly just the incredible and extremely vocabulary hockey booth legend Doc Emrick), sports announcers always tend to fall into those similar trappings as Buck always get accused of. There’s always going to be moments of biased because that team who the announcers are “biased” towards is reflecting their overall love and passion for the kind of game that they are broadcasting. There’s always going to be moments of repetition and stating the obvious because they always have to keep the audience up-to-date on every single important concrete detail imaginable so that anyone who is just joining in the game itself will not be lost. Lastly, it’s a very difficult to constantly keep talking for several hours straight and getting little to no time to take a break or even get a cup of water to clear your throat. It’s understandable for an announcer to be exhausted or even bored on occasions. These sort of critiques are ones that you can apply to any announcer yet it’s always seems like Joe Buck himself that gets those critiques thrown at him more than most. Sure, he’s arguably the biggest sports broadcaster out there but it’s always seems like as those sports fans consider Joe Buck to be a scapegoat to what’s wrong with sports broadcasting nowadays when in actual reality, that’s just how it has been going on in the sports booth for a really long time.

Every sports broadcaster has their own style and formula that they follow. Buck, admittedly, has that more than most announcers out there but that’s what makes him good, popular, and all around, a class act. He never acts like he is above anyone and even has no problem calling himself out with various infamous calls he has made. He treats each game exactly the way it is suppose to be without trying to make it all about himself. He knows what every single viewer who is watching is there for, it is there for the big game that he is getting paid big bucks to talk about for a certain amount of time. Is he the greatest ever? Probably not, but he’s far from the worst and you most likely won’t find anyone bigger than him for at least a good long while.

But yet, things are about to change drastically for sports out there. For the first time since 1999, someone else will be the voice of the World Series. For the first time since god knows how long, someone else will be the voice for Fox when they get their turn at the Super Bowl less than a year from now. For the first time in a long time (at least until 2027 when ESPN will get their chance at broadcasting the Bowl itself), there will be no Joe Buck to lead the charge to any big game event other than for some Monday night ball action. There’s a chance that things will be different at some point but for now, that’s how things are going to be.

You don’t have to love Joe Buck or even like him, as many people have demonstrated for the past several years but there’s no denying that things will be different without him broadcasting live sport events for Fox. During the 21st century, one man has been the face of the World Series and Saturday afternoon/night baseball games for Fox. Whether he’s with the booth with Tim McCarver, John Smoltz, Harold Reynolds, Tom Verducci or whoever, he has always had some sort of presence there. Now, that presence has vanished along with his football duo, Troy Aikman. They both have vanished into thin air and now have found themselves a new home.

No matter who ends up replacing Joe Buck for Fox, they will have quiet a legacy to inherit for many years to come.

Here’s a clip of Joe Buck’s arguably most iconic call, one which he echoed from his father.