Conan Steals a Movie

Last week, I caught Toy Story 5.

I've seen every Pixar movie in their theatrical runs. Yes, even the "Disney Plus"  exclusives: Soul, Luca, and Turning Red. With the fifth entry of the story of toys, I can happily say that the streak remains intact.

Well, with two exceptions: The Incredibles (never got around to it) and Onward (lockdown happened just as I was gonna go see it).

But anyway, my verdict: way better than Toy Story 4. Nothing will ever top the first two, or most of Toy Story 3, but overall I enjoyed it.

(WARNING: Spoilers ahead)

Did this movie need to be made? No.

Did Woody need to be in this movie? No.

Was it good anyway? Yes.

They tackle the "tech vs toys" plot pretty well here. It's not "oh no, tech is here and making kids dumb!" like a lesser movie would do. If anything, the tension between the toys and Lilypad is a parallel to Woody and Buzz in the first movie: a new, advanced toy shows up, upstages the older toys, they eventually learn to coexist, complete with the requisite chase scene at the climax.

It also shares a lot of plot beats from Inside Out 2 in a way: Lily is like Anxiety, the new toy/emotion that thinks it knows what's best for Bonnie as she tries to make friends, casts out the old guard, finds out the hard way that their way alone doesn't help (Bonnie getting cyberbullied hits HARD, not gonna lie.), the old toys and the new ones learn to balance their involvement in Bonnie's life. Everyone wins.

Oh, and Jessie is the lead in this movie, and it delves into her backstory that'd been on the backburner since her introduction in Toy Story 2. Did you ever cry at THAT scene? Well, they revisit it. And prepare to get emotional over it.

If I had to say a negative about this movie it's that the cast is too damn big. Every movie introduces a new "gang", which leads to less screentime to the older "gangs" over the series, with this one being no exception. Most of the old guard gets a line or a bit to let their voice actors retain their SAG benefits, and they spend most of the movie in a box in the garage. Rex and Hamm still deliver the goods, and Mr. Potato Head finally got recast, so he has actual lines again. As for Bonnie's toys, my favorite of the new group is Forky. He's so blunt about everything, it sets him apart from the sardonic and sarcastic Andy toys.

Hell, I was surprised to see some of the Toy Story 4 gang, too. Duke Kaboom (the one played by Keanu Reeves) was the only one that talked. That's how stuffed this movie was.

But the MVP of the new "Gang" was Smarty Pants, voiced by Conan O'Brien.

Yes, he's an early 2000s potty training device, with all the bathroom jokes that go with it. He can only count to 2, he has two buttons, he'll make any pun about gas, it makes a toilet flush sound every time you pull his handle, and he looks like a damn roll of toilet paper. You get the idea.

It's incredible character design. There's one sequence that gives him Conan's hair, and the resemblance is uncanny. And his first scene has him acting like a belligerent drunk. You just gotta think Conan was having a field day in that recording booth.

Oh, and he can text and interface with a camera and a GPS somehow. Don't think about that too hard.

But the best part is that, yes, there is a real toy of Smarty Pants and does everything he does in the movie, even the drunk talk. There's a video of Conan seeing it for the first time and he is HORRIFIED.

"I'm being interrupted by myself!"

"Join the club!" says everyone else lol

But the biggest surprise was the voice of Snappy the digital camera.

It was Shelby Rabara! The voice of Peridot from Steven Universe!

Snappy even acts like Peridot, too! Well, more like post-character development, but she's still anxious, and tiny, and uses a digital interface, but she's more positive.

All in all, a definite recommend.

And now June, Pride Month, comes to an end. And now we enter July: Wrath Month.

Especially if the five day forecast is any indication.

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It Snode

Forgive me if I'm not too into the National Gorilla Suit Day spirit this year. We just lost Catherine O'Hara.

She was one of those rare people I've never heard a bad word about. Like she was just as lovely offscreen as she was during any of her performances. 

All these tributes will talk about Beetlejuice or Home Alone or SCTV or Nightmare Before Christmas or Schitt's Creek or A Mighty Wind. But I will stand up on a hill and say that acting opposite Fred Willard in Waiting For Guffman was one of her finest works. I embedded the Midnight At The Oasis audition scene and every second is absolute gold. Not just her acting skills. It takes a LOT of work to act and sing crummy AND be hilarious at the same time, and she made it all look easy. Notice how she's mouthing along to all of Fred's lines, too. And something she's always had a knack for? How her outfits tell a story all on their own. The matching track suits, and the bangs! It's really something only she could pull off, and you don't really think about these things.

TCM showed that and Best in Show last month (right before Rob Reiner and his wife were killed), so those performances were still fresh in my mind.

And she, like Eugene Levy with her, are and were incredible singers.

And I dare you to not have a dry eye after watching the A Kiss At The End of The Rainbow scene from A Mighty Wind.

How that lost the Best Original Song Oscar that year baffles me.

To give you a hint to how far and wide she reached people, when I came home from work yesterday, my mom said "did you see the news? Moira died!"

As in, Moira Rose from Schitt's Creek. That's how my mom knew her. And why wouldn't she? That role is just a master class all on its own. The way she says "Alexis" is seared into my brain. Like Fred Willard, she had this uncanny ability to make boring words sound so gut-bustingly funny.

Just a "Hi!" and you're on the floor. Only her.

Every single tribute shared a different scene and they're all iconic and nobody has a wrong answer. It's gonna be tough without her. And she was on The Studio and I heard it JUST started filming season 2. Can't imagine how they're gonna write around this.

And to get to the main topic: It did indeed snow.

We got at least a foot, which is, uh, not normal in recent years.

I actually had to shovel multiple times that day since it snowed for most of it. It became a real pain in the ass when I had to dig out my car.

And since it hasn't gone above freezing since last Sunday, about 90% of it is still around. And it's MOSTLY off the roads. I can't imagine what it's like living in a place that gets like this all the time. Or, like what's happening now in North Carolina, a place that has barely any infrastructure to handle it.

And one last thing to round out the month:

Walter Simonson?! At a small comic show near me?! For some reason, this was on a Tuesday, so I booked it out of work as soon as I could to take advantage of this really rare chance. The last time he was even around here was NYCC back in 2023, and I had no idea he was there until after the con ended. When he announced that he caught covid from it.

When he's usually at cons, he always had a super long line. Because he liked to chat, and, yeah, how rarely he shows up. And this was really no exception. There were about, maybe fifteen people in front of me? And I still waited about an hour. Mostly because two people in front of me wanted sketches and they waited a long time for him to do it. (As luck would have it, he had just gotten back from a dinner break when I got on line).

He was, of course, real nice and funny and it was really cool to see him sketch right in front of you.

He's most known for his work on the Thor comics, and being a co-creator of Beta Ray Bill. So naturally, I got him to sign my copy of The Mighty Thor #337, his first appearance.

It's the biggest original key issue I own. I own a few classics in reprint form, but this one's the real McCoy. I bought this off eBay in I wanna say 2018 because if the MCU was gonna add him to it, I'd better buy it before the price on it skyrockets, lest what happened to the first appearances of the Guardians of The Galaxy. No name characters that appeared in no name comics that now command big name prices because Zoe Saldana and Bradley Cooper play them in movies. 

Well, he hasn't shown up yet, but it's still a key and it still commands a big price. But not as much as I thought it'd be. For a while, it was the most I paid for a comic.

But I also got Mr. Simonson to sign Beta Ray Bill's next two appearances, in Thor 338 and 339.

Pay no attention to the price tags, I got them for much cheaper at NYCC the year I bought them.

Thor 339, not only was it part of Assistant Editor's Month, but it's notable for being the first appearance of Beta Ray Bill's weapon Storm Breaker, and that WAS famously added to the MCU in Infinity War.

And just for fun I got a couple of the Frog Thor issues signed, too.

When are THOSE stories getting adapted, Feige?! And how can Kermit star in them?!

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It's Hot Out There

 

Ow. Well, the sun was certainly doing its job last week. The highest it read was 107. That's not safe for, well, anyone. I felt like I was gonna burst into flames the moment I walked outside. At least it only lasted two days. And I'm in the Northeastern United States, this ain't common, I can't imagine living somewhere where it's like this all the time.

And stupid me thinking 94 degrees yesterday wasn't as bad, despite still being, you know, hot as hell.

But back when the weather was more sane, I went to look at baby geese.

And saw a Black-crowned Night Heron!

I didn't even notice it until I saw people taking pictures around the pond. I never saw one in person before, let alone one this close! It was super cool.

Phineas & Ferb came back. I know a lot of people (myself included) aren't fans of reboots and revivals of shows that should have never been cancelled in the first place, but this new season really does feel like it never left. That's high praise. Dan & Swampy and crew took what they learned about storytelling over the past nine years and applied them to one of the few hits Disney still has.

I hope we get to see the bread bowl hot tub.

Got to play the Mario Kart World demo! Of course I played as the cow. Someday I'll buy a Switch 2. I just don't have the time or money for a $500 Mario Kart machine right now. I'm holding out for DK Bananza and Pokemon Legends Z-A.

Saw Pixar's latest, Elio! A cute story about a troubled boy wanting purpose and friends. This one was meddled with, AND IT SHOWS, but boy, it turned out pretty good. Definitely a better sci-fi story than Lightyear, that's for sure.

Overall, I didn't do THAT much this month. Nothing much notable, anyway. But I was bequeathed a collection of old school Sailor Moon VHS tapes from the parents of my late friend DJ. They were moving to Florida, and I got to pick through what was left of his DVD and VHS collection.

I didn't take most of the tapes, mostly because I haven't owned a VCR in about twenty years. We were very kindred spirits, we had the same taste in tapes. Lots of Disney. Like "did my tape collection somehow end up with him?" kinda thoughts.

I kept all the Sailor Moon tapes for sentimental reasons. It's mostly S and SuperS, but there were a few of the old school janky covers, like the one above with Sailor Mercury.

Oh, And I went to a food festival.

The Famous Food Festival seems more and more like a scam every time I go. It costs so much to get in, a lot of the vendors I liked stopped coming, and everything's so expensive. This time I mostly window shopped, since my wallet and my stomach aren't as big as they used to be and didn't want to ruin my Sunday dinner.

I did, however, try some omurice.

A fried rice dish with some egg on top. Man, that was good. But I wasn't a fan of the price.

If you have to ask how much something costs, it's too much.

That'll do it for June. Lets hope July is better.

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Thankful 2024

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! I spent my morning the way I always do: watching the Macy's Parade.

If the parade wasn't defined by Wicked, it was defined by rain. Everyone was damp, Jimmy Fallon wore giant hangover shades, conservatives were outraged by Broadway performances, and there was an actual technical hiccup where everyone had to awkwardly vamp! But ultimately all the balloons survived this year. Luffy, Snoopy, made it to Herald Square intact. Bluey gave us a scare, but she managed to recover just in time.

I was in Manhattan just last Saturday and saw THAT Macy's all decked out for Christmas.

34th Street is a lot more narrow than you'd think it is. Savannah and Hoda are like twenty feet away from the action, tops.

And of course someone on the parade route recorded the whole thing if you just want to watch floats and balloons march in the rain.

Then there was the Dog Show.

They were all good dogs, but ultimately Vito The Pug won Best in Show.

Apparently he was the winningest pug in America, and the National Dog Show was another notch on the belt. He was clearly the crowd favorite, and I'm glad he won since most of the other dogs I posted? Never even made it to the finals in their groups.

And finally the MST3K Turkey Day marathon. The highlight was the long awaited return of The Final Sacrifice, which had been in legal limbo for the better part of a decade.

It is, of course, the one with everyone's favorite Canadian hero Zap Rowsdower. I hadn't seen it since Netflix had the MST3K rights, and it's still a stone cold classic. I'm so happy it's streaming again.

This is usually the post where I'd highlight what I'd seen at Anime NYC, but since that got moved to August, I have to improvise and write November's entry the way I used to: what am I thankful for?

Well, obviously, parades, dogs, and Rowsdower. I'm also thankful for my cat.

She decided to give us another one of her health scares again. Turns out she was just meowing a lot and my folks were getting annoyed by it. I had to beg to not get her put down just because of that, and I'm happy to say she's still with us. Tell her how cute she is.

I'm also thankful for food on the table, and that I have a stable job and a roof over my head.

Thanksgiving was a rather modest spread this year because it's still just me and my parents. I'm starting to realize that my family is white. If your first thought was "This looks like it was made by someone that hated Thanksgiving," you'd be right. Mom can't stand turkey, and is getting tired of all the other food, too. It tasted better than it looked, I assure you.

And finally, I DID go to a little con. I said earlier I was in Manhattan last Saturday, and it was for Big Apple Con. I went there mostly to meet the Effin' Birds guy.

He was as cool as you'd think he'd be. He even signed the inside!

Plus here are some of the most in character pickups I ever bought.

Don't pay attention to the prices. Aside from the Bob Hope comics, everything I showed was 75% off. I don't think I paid more than $35 for everything.

But the main highlight is this issue of Starburst I found:

I bought it mostly for the cover, and it already checked off a lot of my boxes. Batman '66, Doctor Who news, stuff that censors cut from tv airings of Robocop!

And then I looked inside and I hit pay dirt, readers.

The Doctor Who story was announcing a movie that was ultimately never made. You see, this was a British nerd magazine from 1988, everyone was still holding out hope that it wasn't going to get cancelled by this time the following year. And of course it had a page full of people complaining about how Doctor Who went downhill.

Back then to complain about Doctor Who you had to put in some effort, dammit! Nowadays you can scream right into an underserving social media intern's ear about how a progressive show like Doctor Who suddenly went woke because the Doctor isn't a white guy anymore or some nonsense.

There was a multi page retrospective on Batman '66, which had just entered syndication in the UK market. Just about everyone was still alive at the time, to boot. 

Yes folks, Vincent Price was on multiple pages, as he should be. But then I looked on.

And awful review of Leonard Part VI! There were also articles on Captain Power, The Lost Boys, and an interview with Katheryn Bigelow. If I was a British nerd in the 80s, I would've been a subscriber. 

And finally, I'm thankful to all of you, my readers. This is the longest project I've ever written, approaching 17 years! And hopefully many more.

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