A look ahead at 2023 movies

February 17 Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania...the 3rd in the franchise features Kang The Conquerer as the main villain and a new Cassie Lang portrayed by Supernatural alum Kathryn Newton

March 17 Shazam! Fury of the Gods....don't know if I'll see it in the theater but I'll see it once it hits HBO Max

May 5 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3...they're saying this is the final film with this group of Guardians and rumor is that one of the Guardians won't survive

June 16 The Flash...we'll see if it actually hits theaters finally...keeps getting delayed...some rumor have said it would focus around the Flashpoint storyline and both Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton are supposed to appear as their versions of Batman

June 30 Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny...Harrison Ford's final movie as Henry Jones Jr...set in 1969 with the space race as the backdrop...Sallah is the only one who returns with Indy from past films

July 28 The Marvels...sequel to Captain Marvel and features Carol, Ms Marvel, Monica "Lt Trouble" Rambeau, Fury, and Goose....Carol, Kamala, and Monica keep swapping places when they use their powers and they must find out why

August 18 Blue Beetle...another I may not see in the theaters but it centers on the DC Comics character

September 22 The Expendables 4...haven't seen any of them in the theaters but they're always entertaining and exciting

October 6 Kraven The Hunter...centered on Spiderman's enemy not set in the MCU but in the Sonyverse along with the Venom movies and Morbius....some have said these movies are in the same universe as the Amazing Spiderman movies with Andrew Garfield

December 20 Ghostbusters 4...a little over 2 years since Ghostbusters Afterlife with little details available but it's supposed to be back in NYC....with Winston as a key figure as well as Egon's grandkids....Vigo may be returning

December 25 Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom...was supposed to be released a year sooner but Covid and other issues have pushed back the release....little is known except that Black Manta, a secondary villain in the 1st film, will be the primary villain in this one. There's been talk of reshoots and rewrites to remove Amber Heard from the movie and this may be Jason Momoa's last run as Aquaman so a recasting might not happen for Mera. Ben Affleck is said to be returning as Bruce Wayne

A look back at 2022 movies

March 4-The Batman..had its moments and Colin Farrel as the Penguin was ok...but Paul Dano was a terrible Riddler, IMO and Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman threw herself at Batman way too easily it seemed. Gotham I thought had the best versions of Penguin and Riddler and Anne Hathaway was my favorite Catwoman

May 6-Dr Strange and The Multiverse of Madness...was mindblowing though I will say I was disappointed that Wanda went so dark...I had hoped that the events of WandaVision had straightened her out

May 27-Top Gun Maverick....what can be said that hasn't been said already? Maybe have said it was better than the 1986 original and while I won't go that far, it was damn close. The mission was predictable but well-done and the callbacks to the original were plentiful without taking over the narrative

June 10-Jurassic World Dominion...I loved Beta and the interactions between the cast of the original Jurassic Park and the newer stars but the focus on locusts was a terrible storyline, IMO. What makes the Jurassic movies amazing has been the dinosaurs....insects should be a side character instead of a focus

July 8-Thor Love and Thunder I honestly found this to be the worst of the Thor movies and I hope Chris Hemsworth gets his wish..to get a 5th film with a more serious script. Outside of Jane's cancer, it seemed this was more of a comedy than any MCU film....even the Guardians original

October 21-Black Adam....I'm not that familiar with the character but I thought it was really good. Pierce Brosnan made an outstanding Doctor Fate and Aldis Hodge was incredible as Hawkman. Of course The Rock brings a lot to the screen as Black Adam

November 11-Wakanda Forever...loved it but the original was better...though with the death of T'Challa, there was virtually no chance of living up to that. Angela Bassett has been mentioned as an Oscar nominee for her role as the Queen Mother and while Namor has some comic inaccuracies, his motives made sense.

Moonfall...saw it on HBO a month or so ago...definitely an eye-opening disaster film with Halle Berry

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent which I saw on TV a few weeks ago. It was pretty funny...Nick Cage seemingly made fun of his own idiosyncracies in playing a somewhat fictionalized version of himself.

League Of SuperPets which I saw on HBOMax....it was cute and funny...THe Rock as Krypto and Kevin Hart as Ace were highlights...they make a hell of a duo

Uncharted...just saw it on Netflix this weekend and I thought it was really good...kept me on the edge of my seat

Lost City....just saw it on EPIX and it was kinda silly...a romance novelist gets kidnapped and forced to look for a treasure she writes about it her latest book and the cover model for her books has to actually be the hero his character is

Morbius...just saw it on Netflix this weekend and it was ok but didn't excite me in the least...the release was delayed 6 times and while I didn't hate it, they could've kept delaying it

some days

I feel like the only thing keeping me going is Jared and Jensen. If not for them I don't know what I would do...whether I would be around much longer 

some deep thoughts

 My last relationship ended Dec 30, 2004....she had only been dating me to stay close to her ex, who was dating a friend of mine that I spent a lot of time with at the time. Had a girlfriend a few years prior who I had nothing in common with...except sex....it ended because it wasn't enough sex for her...she cheated on me. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened had things worked out with the 1st girl I dated from online. She was an absolutely gorgeous redhead who was sweet, intelligent, and easy to talk to...she also had muscular dystrophy and used a wheelchair. I didn't think that would be an issue but maybe the prospect of dating someone caused me to sabotage the date....talking about tennis and tailgating so much. Sometimes I wonder if I'm being punished for screwing that up. I knew after the date that I screwed up...hell, I think I knew during the date. Many years later, I emailed her...I had remembered her Yahoo handle and hoped she still checked that email address. I may have apologized after the date but I don't remember for sure. In my email, I thoroughly apologized to her...I wasn't being a jerk to her but thoughtless. The purpose of the email wasn't for a 2nd chance...this was over a decade later and even if it had been sooner, I don't think I would have deserved one. I just wanted to apologize and hoped she was well. She emailed me back to thank me...said she was in North Carolina and happily married with children. Sounds like things worked out for the best for her but there will probably always be a part of me that regrets my thoughtlessness,

My last encounter was in January 2007...we hooked up a couple of times but there was little connection between us. There was another girl a few years before her...don't recall exactly when...pretty much the same thing.

My last date...Labor Day 2011...with someone I thought was a good friend but may have wanted more until her mother found out about our age difference....or maybe she was playing me all along. I honestly don't know. It felt like a real friendship but given my history with women, the latter seems pretty likely.
Maybe  this all stems from never having a good relationship with my mother...I don't know...but I usually get the worst from women I ever feel close to...there have been 3 that wrecked me so badly that I thought about ending my life at the time. The last time, in 2012, after the girl I had the date with in 2011 destroyed something I valued very deeply...the only thing that saved me was my boys...I couldn't leave Oreo and Derek without a father.

These days, as I approach 51, there's a part of me that hates being single...but the feelings I've felt from other women working to destroy my confidence and life....left scars too deep to ignore. There are a few women who I've thought about but one lives so far away and has been burnt as badly as I have....the other, I haven't seen in over a decade except on social media. Regardless, the scars remain

Things I think

 Whoopi Goldberg was right and wrong. On one hand, when we think about race, it’s generally skin color and in that respect, Hitler’s hatred of the Jews wasn’t about racism because Judaism is a religion and not a skin color. On the other hand, other than the human race, race is essentially a social construct and many Jewish people consider themselves to be a race unto themselves so it would be a form of racism after all.  The biggest flaw in what Whoopi said was that she made it seem like she was trivializing Hitler’s hatred of the Jews as simple hatred. While I’m pretty sure that wasn’t her intention, her words mattered. Hated is something that can’t be trivialized…people who hate based on skin color, religion, sexuality, or any number of things that aren’t dependent on a person’s character are not good people..but they can change if they choose to. I know my father was bigoted to an extent but he let go of some of that before he passed away. Hatred should be reserved for people who are purely evil…people like Hitler, Putin, Manson, Dahmer, and Trump. A lot of people hate others because of their political views. Maybe it’s because I’m a right-leaning moderate but I think both sides of the aisle have something positive to contribute. 

There are extremists on both sides. On the right, it’s people who worship Trump and fascism. They deny reality and are afraid of education. They're outspoken against Critical Race Theory....which is a graduate level course on history without the whitewashing that most history teachers have taught. On the left, it’s the people who take things to the extreme. Here’s an example…statues of Confederate leaders are coming down from places of honor…statues that celebrate traitors who fought to protect the institution of slavery and were erected to promote the ideology of white supremacy. There is no reasonable reason to stop taking them down. Honoring traitors whose greatest claim to fame was to fight on the side of evil can’t be justified to decent human beings. But where extremists on the left are getting carried away is that they’re going after statues of people who did some great positive things to be remembered for but they had some serious flaws as well. Washington and Jefferson owned slaves…Lincoln freed the slaves but still didn’t see the black man as his equal. Do these flaws need to be acknowledged better? Absolutely…but those flaws weren’t their main attributes by any means nor should their positive accomplishments be overshadowed by the negatives in their character. People who do great things deserve to be honored for them…if you only honor perfect people, you’ll never honor anyone.

I grew up a Republican and loved how Reagan stood up to the Soviet Union, despite his economic policies…how far the Republican party has fallen since then. Their economic policies are still flawed but whereas they used to be strong on defense and against Russia, now they follow a coward who chose Putin and Russia over America…Reagan has to be rolling over in his grave. It’s nice to see some of them siding with Ukraine  now that Putin has attacked them but where was that support when Trump was illegally extorting them to try to rig the 2020 election? Why weren’t they standing against Russia when Putin attacked our democracy with disinformation in 2016 and beyond? Or when Putin put bounties on the heads of our military.  Better late than never, I guess? But if they still support Putin’s efforts in the US, standing against him in Ukraine is just window dressing…nothing more. 

Now, I hate Trump and won’t apologize for that…he’s a career con artist who divided the country I proudly served…his supporters and worshipers I don’t hate. I don’t have a high opinion of them because while some love Trump because he hates the same people they hate, I think a lot follow him out of ignorance and gullibility. They think that because he’s not a career politician, he couldn’t possibly be corrupt. Corruption exists outside of politics though and Trump set new levels of corruption that would make Nixon look saintly And then of course there’s the treason and all the other crimes. The funniest thing about their worship is the insane theory that QAnon has spread that he was sent by God to stop pedophiles. Really? The living embodiment of the 7 Deadly Sins was sent by God? The guy who was BFFs with Jeffrey Epstein and has 26 sexual assault allegations against him, including from a 13 year old girl…who bragged about getting away with sexual assault…who bragged about going into the dressing rooms of teenage girls who were dressing and undressing…is going to stop pedophiles? I don’t hate these people…I pity them…I pity their inability to think and their blind worship of the closest thing to the Antichrist we’ve seen since Hitler. I’m not religious…but more agnostic than atheist and the Bible is pretty clear on followers of the Antichrist. I don’t think anyone worships Biden…we elected him because the alternative was pure evil. The vast majority of Biden voters acknowledge his flaws…Trump worshipers deny his, though. They actually try to claim the worst thing he ever did was mean tweets....it takes a special kind of ignorant to believe that

If you’re a Trump worshipper and reading this…wake the fuck up.