Uncategorized Archives - Page 3 of 130

25DecDecember 25, 2024

Rudolph’s Propagantastic Beginning

There are no Gen-Xers that don’t have fond memories of Rankin/Bass Christmas specials (at least the ones who aren’t sad and miserable). They were part of the magic of Christmas for my generation. Earlier generations had one-horse open sleigh rides, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, and Bing crooning about how he’d be home for Christmas. I suppose we still had Bing, but it was Charlie Brown and Rankin/Bass that signified we would soon be getting a two-week break from school and driving...

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24DecDecember 24, 2024

Christmas Ghost Stories

Americans are an odd bunch, even those of us holding on to our great heritage get a lot of that heritage wrong. Take a look at Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather. Americans can identify with the familiar aspects of the story, but there are others that feel like they would be more at home at Halloween. There are strong undertones of the eerie and the uncanny throughout the book. That there is a darker reason that children are tucked into their beds with care, and blankets...

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24DecDecember 24, 2024

The Dark Herald Recommends Klaus

BUMPED 12-24-2024 A redemption story for Christmas? The nerve of some people! This is exactly the kind of excellence that Disney can no longer achieve. This was advertised as a Netflix Original. Which is a lie, but I understand why Netflix does this. Calling something a Netflix Original sounds a lot better than, “Dumped on Netflix.” If you can’t get a distribution deal these days, then your best hope is dumping your movie on Netflix. Netflix does have some standards for this. Usually,...

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23DecDecember 23, 2024

Is Activision Plagiarism Laundering??

An interesting and tricky legal question that I will have to be careful in dancing around. While credit laundering is legally speaking not the motive, it looks rather a lot like it’s the effect. Not too long ago Activision/Blizzard had yet another scandal. Hearthstone had sold some cards that turned out to have been created by generative AI. Now this was not actually company policy, this was just some stuff that was outsourced to an “artist” who let his computer do...

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23DecDecember 23, 2024

Christmas Weekend Roundup

Sonic 3 Runs Mufasa Into the Ground The spikey blue hedgehog ran the Lion King's old man into the ground. Sonic's take is $62 million. Mufasa pulled in a decidedly second place $35 million. This isn't remotely a surprise. This loss was mostly due to Disney's corporate arrogance. They moved Mufasa onto Sonic 3's weekend and just assumed that Paramount would slink away with its tail between its legs when challenged by the awesome might of Disney's biggest animation...

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19DecDecember 19, 2024

Looks Better Than Snyderverse Superman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhUht6vAsMY My opinions: I don't think a single movie has ever had so much riding on it or had so many things going against it. Marvel doesn't have anything warming up in the batter's box that's going to make any money. Sam Wilson's Captain America movie has cost so much to make it would have to pull in $2 billion before it could see a profit and it's not going to be doing that. The Thunderbolts is already dead and...

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18DecDecember 18, 2024

The Dark Herald Does Not Recommend: Kraven

Yeah, I can tell you’re surprised. The Spider-Man-free Spider-Man movies were an idea only a Hollywood producer could love. Certainly, no one else did. As far as I can tell, Amy Pascal knew she was in the process of being fired. She had been caught up in the Sony email scandal saying some excessively honest things about people like Angelina Jolie. That, plus a string of underperforming movies that had her name attached to them had her in Tom Rothman’s gun...

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18DecDecember 18, 2024

Dear Jag, This Is How You Take Care of a Brand

First a little background. Everyone except car dealers hates car dealerships. Yeah, I know and water is wet. Car dealerships were one of those FDR Goldilocks programs, they showed up for dinner uninvited and never left. The thinking at the time was that it would allow car manufacturers to concentrate on research and development. A few of its advocates had the nerve to claim it was a huge success because of America's automobile dominance in the 1950s, ignoring...

By The Dark HeraldUncategorized

17DecDecember 17, 2024

The Dark Herald Does Not Recommend War of the Rohirrim

I shall now damn this movie with the faintest praise I can give to anything. It’s not as bad as The Rings of Power. The story this is based on is in the appendices. Here is the quick and dirty. The Dunelendings were the descendants of swarthy men who had sided with Morgoth. Like all of his servants they served unwillingly but serve him they did which gave the Numenoreans a beef with them when they got that far East. When the kings...

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14DecDecember 14, 2024

Never Apologize

REPOST: Originally posted Dec 2021 Why was In the Heights #canceled? Oh, there is the official reason but that has nothing to do with why it got put on blast by all the major media outlets within twenty-four hours. It wasn’t the real reason the film had its box office burned to the ground and its creator was forced to make a groveling apology. The Dark Herald will fill you in on that a little later. First the background. In the Heights, was a 2008 Broadway...

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