2016: A Year in Review

It’s the start of a New Year so it’s time to look ahead once again. For me that means digging up my time machine out of storage and travelling forward into the next year to see exactly how well we fared out in 2016. The results were interesting to say the least, and now I’m back with the biggest headlines of each month. What’s in store for the coming year? You may be surprised. Or you may not. Nevertheless, enjoy these snippets of 2016:

-January: In the world of fashion, the mullet comes back into style. Jimmy Fallon sports one for a Tonight Show bit leading to millions of men and boys adopting it. Michael Bolton rejoices.

-February: Chris Rock is replaced as Academy Awards host at the last minute by a safer Steve Harvey. The Oscar for Best Actor mistakenly goes to Leonardo DiCaprio.

-March: After the Full House reunion on Netflix’s Fuller House, comedy suffers a mild stroke. On a related note, the mullet goes back out of style.

-April: Climate change forces polar bears to take drastic action and in a hostile takeover they drive everyone out of the Territories. The rest of Canada doesn’t notice.

-May: The Anonymous-ISIS War is brought to a temporary halt when a large population of irritated mothers cut off their kids’ internet connections.

-June: A bill is passed allowing M16 assault rifles to be issued to all Americans, which miraculously brings an end to all mass shootings and gun violence.

-July: Adele goes on a world tour, her single “Hello” receiving wide acclaim for its simple title and soulful love ballad. Lionel Ritchie decides to show her how it’s done.

-August: More than six hundred courageous trans-people come out of the closet, but no one cares because they were never on a bad reality show.

-September: Justin Trudeau cements his place as sexiest world leader when he does a photoshoot for Vogue. During his four week holiday, Stephane Dion is left in charge. Even conservatives beg Trudeau to come back.

-October: Doctors discover a cure for common sense, but realize most of the world’s been operating under it for decades.

-November: Under suspicious circumstances, Donald Trump is elected President of the United States with running mate Sean Hannity. Canada prepares to welcome three hundred million American refugees.

-December: Just in time for the holiday season, the dead rise from their graves and begin devouring the human race. Zombie Charlemagne is appointed supreme potentate while Zombie Lincoln leads the slaughter of humankind. Nevertheless everyone living and undead come together on the 18th to watch the fiftieth anniversary of How the Grinch Stole Christmas? on ABC.

Comments

Disney's Mulan, Cultural Appropriation, and Exploitation

I’m late on this one I know. I wasn’t willing to spend thirty bucks back in September for a movie experience I knew was going to be far poorer than if I had paid half that at a theatre. So I waited for it to hit streaming for free to give it a shot. In the meantime I heard that it wasn’t very good, but I remained determined not to skip it entirely, partly out of sympathy for director Niki Caro and partly out of morbid curiosity. Disney’s live-action Mulan I was actually mildly looking forward to early in the year in spite of my well-documented distaste for this series of creative dead zones by the most powerful media conglomerate on earth. Mulan was never one of Disney’s classics, a movie extremely of its time in its “girl power” gender politics and with a decidedly American take on ancient Chinese mythology. It got by on a couple good songs and a strong lead, but it was a movie that could be improved upon, and this new version looked like it had the potential to do that, emphasizing

The Hays Code was Bad, Sex in Movies is Good

Don't Look Now (1973) Will Hays, Who Knows About Sex In 1930, former Republican politician and chair of the Motion Picture Association of America Will Hayes introduced a series of self-censorship guidelines for the movie industry in response to a mixture of celebrity scandals and lobbying from the Catholic Church against various ‘immoralities’ creating a perception of Hollywood as corrupt and indecent. The Hays Code, or the Motion Picture Production Code, was formally adopted in 1930, though not stringently enforced until 1934 under the auspices of Joseph Breen. It laid out a careful list of what was and wasn’t acceptable for a film expecting major distribution. It stipulated rules against profanity, the depiction of miscegenation, and offensive portrayals of the clergy, but a lot of it was based around sexual content: “sexual perversion” of any kind was disallowed, as were any opaquely textual or visual allusions to reproduction, and right near the top “No licentious or suggestiv

Pixar Sundays: The Incredibles (2004)

Brad Bird was already a master by the time he came to Pixar. Not only did he hone his craft as an early director on The Simpsons , but he directed a little animated film for Warner Bros. in 1999, that though not a box office success was loved by critics and quickly grew a cult following. The Iron Giant is now among many people’s favourite animated movies. Likewise, Bird’s feature debut at Pixar, The Incredibles , his own variation of a superhero movie, is often considered one of the studio’s best. And for very good reason, as the most talented director at Pixar shows. Superheroes were once the world’s greatest crime-fighting force until several lawsuits for collateral damage (and in the case of Mr. Incredible, a hilarious suicide prevention), outlawed their vigilantism. Fifteen years later Mr. Incredible, now living as Bob Parr, has a family with his wife Helen, the former Elastigirl. But Bob, in a combination of mid-life crisis and nostalgia for the old day

Reviews of the Bosch

Search This Blog